Cheer

Pearl Street, Newtown on Wednesday, 13 May 2020

The factory worker’s house

Pearl Street is at the other end of the new ‘Industri’ apartment complex I mentioned in my writing about Alice Street, published on 23 October 2020 with the title I wait for you here.

I was sure that a factory would have been on that site and that the name ‘Industri’ was honouring this industrial past.

Opposite this complex is a stately home on a large property with tall trees. Very unusual for this area which has mainly small terrace houses. I imagine it belonged to the owner or director of the factory that once stood at the location of the new residential block. He was of a generation and work ethic who believed to have to be present at their own business or otherwise things wouldn’t function properly. I am making this up entirely. 

The factory owner’s house

I notice a variation of the peaky gable style terrace house in this street, where two entities share the same gable and have two entrances underneath, while most I have seen have a window underneath and the entrance at one side. A big fenced-in playground is closed. In a small passageway, a few young men are working on graffiti. At the end is Pearl Lane with a retro feel and look about it, enhanced by the intense light that breaks through dark clouds.

Back in Pearl Street is a large empty lot and on the exposed wall of a house at the end of it is the word CHEER in graffiti lettering. I consider briefly photographing some discarded items on the porch of a neglected small cottage, including a scarf wound around the fence post which matches the colour of the window frames. But give it up. A moment later a truck arrives and stops right there. Two delivery guys carry in a big packaged screen and something else. Someone seems to need better entertainment equipment for the lockdown, no matter how shabby all the rest looks. And I thought the house is deserted.  

All you need is love

Question marks

Clara Street, Newtown on Wednesday, 13 May 2020

There are new posters everywhere in Newtown and surrounding areas listing telephone numbers to ring for health advice, mental health and domestic violence. They are from the Newtown Green MP Jenny Leong. Next to those on the pole at the beginning of Clara Street is another lost cat notice. I think it’s about the same cat as from the poster in Eve Street. Clara Street has a few colourful murals and graffiti. On one end are big question marks painted on the wall. I interpret these as symbolic of our times, though they probably were there before.

At the end of the street, a slim, elegant cat tiptoes across the pavement. It has a collar with a bell that jingles at every step. I decide it must be female and wonder if she is the lost one, but she is already gone. After a moment, she reappears, racing, almost flying at high speed, chased by an ordinary-looking house and garden variety cat.

Clinging to a wooden fence, a tangle of strings, torn fabric, and dry branches of a vine remind me of the network of streets I am walking through on my discoveries. Nearby I read “Welcome home, Milly” on a garden gate. An odd pair of graffiti creatures look disapprovingly at a red piece of cloth dangling in a tree.

Somewhere in the City

Eve and Pearl Street, Erskineville on Monday, 11 May 2020

Somewhere in the City, 2003

Eve Street is part of the new apartment complex which once was Ashmore Industrial Estate. I know the name from my old map. I saw one side of this new complex from Victoria Street in Erskineville just recently. 

I don't remember the name of the street where I took photos of old industrial buildings in this area many years ago. The Ashmore estate looks as if it was much bigger, and it was probably securely fenced in. Further down from Eve Street is Pearl Street. It must be new, not listed in my old street directory. One building has an old photo of working-class women and children on their front porch enlarged and imprinted on a perforated metal fence and garage door. 

A row of the old terraces in Eve Street is still standing, looking a bit lost. A dilapidated timber house is leaning against the self-proclaimed luxury estate The Secret Garden. Nevertheless, the old house has a satellite dish on its roof. You have to know where your priorities lie. I watch a man taping a poster to a lamp post. It’s about a lost cat. I feel sad for him.

While preparing this blog for posting now in January 2021, I am still thinking about the photos I took in 2003 somewhere around this area. I finally dig them out and can decipher a company name on one of the factory walls. It's Brightwell Transport and they still exist in Coulson Street, just around the corner from Eve Street. One of the photos kickstarted my project Night Cruise. I named it Somewhere in the City. Interesting that these buildings are still there. The other photo was taken through my car windscreen and includes the opposite side of the street. It shows a long building with a row of windows, no doors on that side. Whatever it was, it’s now gone and replaced by apartment blocks. 

View from the railway bridge to 'Brightwell Transport’ in Coulson Street, January 2021

From the series ‘Night Cruise’, 2003

Local history

Susan Street, Rose and Victoria Street, Newtown on Sunday, 10 May 2020

Susan Street is where Ali used to live. He is one of the people I met when I first came to Sydney, but we lost contact. He is a cobbler and ran a shop in Missenden Road.

I never ventured any further into the small streets past Ali’s flat. It’s a part of Newtown where I feel the past speaks to me. Small dwellings, local industry, a few pubs, a church and a cemetery.

Victoria Street ends at the gate to the old cemetery of St Stephen's Anglican Church. On this sunny Sunday afternoon, I see people walking in and out through the gate as if there is a special event. Even though we are still in lockdown and the streets are mostly empty. It’s a peaceful place to go for a quiet walk, like a sanctuary. The graves are old, and flowers grow in between. Pink cosmos, one of my favourite summer flowers, have grown very tall above the graveyard wall towards the sun.

Later I learn from the 'City of Sydney Historic Walks' website that the 'NSW Railway and Recreation Club' used to be at the corner of Victoria and O’Connell Street, now converted into apartments. The 'Older Women’s Network NSW' is also housed in Victoria Street in a gated, freestanding bungalow with a library and outdoor space.

“O’Connell Town”, Newtown on Wednesday, 27 May 2020

I have read in the meantime that the area of Victoria, Susan, Rose, and a few more streets around there was created as a kind of village under Governor Maurice O’Connell in the 1840s. It was intended as a service centre for the surrounding estates. It’s said to have been the only purpose-built entity in that district. I guess that's why I felt that history was speaking to me. It’s still nestling in the corners and niches, as I can sense the village and workman’s atmosphere here. On my several visits to this area, I see many young people on bicycles or scooters with delivery food bags. Sometimes they sit on or next to their vehicles with their mobiles in hand, waiting for the next job. It's still a service centre. Even Ali’s cobbler trade fits well.

Back to my history research: Victoria Street was formerly called Brick Street, and there were brick manufacturers and stone masons for the adjacent graveyard.

There is still a Mechanic Street in this area. ‘Mechanic’ was a common term for working-class men who were not farmers or domestic staff. There is also still a ‘Colonial Engineering Co.’ at the corner of O’Connell and Victoria. I wonder why they’ve kept a name like that. After reading some more, I learn that 'Colonial Engineering' ceased to exist and was converted into flats by 1997. They must have kept the signage for historical reasons.

Layers of time

Edith Street and Lane and Mary Street, St Peters on Friday, 8 May 2020

I park in Edith Street below the windows of a studio in Precinct 75 that could have been mine. I looked at studio spaces last year in June and came across this one by searching for Mary Street Studios, as I remember there were artists’ studios by that name in St Peters. My contact was a designer who seems to own a whole section in one building, using one studio for herself and renting out the others. The ambience was very pleasant, and it was warm on a cold winter’s day. There was a communal kitchen and a visitors’ room, but the actual working space was just a subdivided part with no doors and much too expensive for me. I understand now why, as the whole precinct is tailored for so-called creative business. There is a beer brewery, a coffee roaster, a bakery, design studios, and a photo studio for short-term leases. In short, enterprises generating at least some money. A property developer bought it in 2013. I can’t find any trace of times when these buildings were occupied by not-so-well-off artists. I think it was around 2003 when I knew about it. Originally the complex extending from Edith Street across to Mary Street belonged to ‘Taubman’s Paint Factory’ from 1902 which already closed in the early 1960s.

On this sunny Friday, the precinct is quiet. There are some people at work but the café, run by the coffee roaster company, is closed.

The street has a couple of timber houses and shows some more traces from an industrial past. Another smaller factory or warehouse building has been converted into flats and further down towards the end is Edith Lane with an industrial-looking building which is the backside of a Baby supply shop, called Banana Baby. A man is loading something in a car and a young woman with a baby and a toddler steps out from the back door. They are negotiating something. On the other side of Edith Lane is a 50s small block of flats. Laundry drying on a Hills Hoist in the paved courtyard. 

Across the road is a not yet finished section of the WestConnex building site. Once there was a row of old shops which I photographed a long time ago. 

Princes Highway, near Campbell Street 2004

Another lane with a still operating small factory leads to Mary Street. For a moment the street is very silent, it feels as if I have it to myself. Then a long line of cars files through this narrow street, all coming across from the multi-lane Canal Road. This happens in intervals of the traffic lights. There are more cars on the road again in comparison to the beginning of the lockdown. In the lull between, I realise what’s different in St Peters from before because you don’t miss it when it’s not there: The screaming noise of the planes which normally fly very low over St Peters so that it looks as if they would crash into the buildings.

Number 12 Mary Street has a Banksy-style stencil on its roller door. On closer inspection, it’s not a roller door but wooden boards and a sign that says “Custom Blown Glassware”. The place looks shut, but maybe it always looks shut as there is a phone number to ring.

Later at home, I find a blog about Sydney suburbs covering St Peters. The blogger, ‘travelwithjoanne’, had taken a photo of the same stencil. Then, in 2017, whatever the child dragged behind her was wiped out with grey paint. The boards were of a faded white. Now a part of them is painted sky blue.

I love to read the layers of time like this in the streets. 

No moon, no car

Henrietta Street, Chippendale on Tuesday, 28 April 2020

I'm in Henrietta Street at the spot where I took the photo Chippendale - Full Moon in 2004. At the time, I was chasing a full moon rising over the city for a photo idea. It somehow took me here.

The two buildings featured still exist. The warehouse has the same colours as before. Only the power lines which were attached to the wall are now gone.

Next is the old residential house. The colours have changed to cream instead of the former burgundy and white. A balcony has been added. The fence is different but by no means better or even newer looking. The unkempt plants outside are gone. A new high rise from ‘Central Park’ has changed the skyline.

From my viewpoint, I see just the tail of a white car parked at the street corner, exactly where I had my own white car parked in 2004. I originally included a bit of the car's rear end in the photo. Later I cropped it off and renamed the photo ‘No Moon, No Car’, free after Tom Wait’s song November.

There is actually no full moon visible in the photo but just the glow of it in the night sky.

View from Henrietta Street, 2020

Chippendale I - Full Moon, 2004

Welcome to Redfern

Caroline Street and Lane, Redfern on Sunday, 26 April 2020

Reko Rennie Community Project

This is one of the streets on ‘The Block’, the colloquial name of the precinct near Redfern Station owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company. The area was the first urban land rights claim in Australia, so I learned from the internet. It was set up by Aboriginal activists in 1972 and backed by the Whitlam Government. Funding for the project dried out, and the area fell into disrepair. When I moved to Redfern in 2001, it was a no-go zone. Even the rest of Redfern was like that in the eyes of people who didn’t live here. In those days, you could go or drive to the corner of Lawson and Eveleigh and find someone standing at the wall who would sell you small quantities of weed. I called it ‘supporting the local community’. One night I went to the street after dark to take photos by letting the camera hang around my neck and take shots blindly. It was in October 2003. Most of them didn’t work out, but one just emerged recently from my pile of old photos.

In February 2004 the so-called Redfern riots took place, sparked by the death of TJ Hickey. I arrived towards the end of it. Only a handful of people were left near a smouldering fire, encircled by police. Residents in Lawson Street sat peacefully on their front porches with glasses of wine and watched.

Caroline Street, Redfern in 2003

Redfern “Riot”, February 2004

At the end of Caroline Street towards Eveleigh Street was a large expanse of land, covered with grass. This was left over from demolished houses long before I knew ‘The Block’. At the end was the painting of the Aboriginal flag on the back wall of Tony Mundine’s boxing studio. Seeing it from the bridge at Redfern Station the building looked tiny against the high-rises of the CBD looming over it, the painting itself like a symbol of survival.

In May 2006, this precinct emerged from its dark ages by throwing a 'Block Party' on the grassland. They had a truck serving as a stage in front of the flag painting. Various music groups played while the audience sat leisurely in the grass.

In 2014 and 2015, the 'Tent Embassy' set up camp on that land to protest against the Aboriginal Housing Company’s development plan. They claimed it did not include enough affordable housing for Aboriginal families. After they were evicted, a fence was put around the field to prevent further occupation, so it could not even be used for leisure and play. This is all gone now, as the construction project named 'Pemulwuy' has finally gone ahead. It promises to provide housing for 600 students and 62 affordable dwellings for Aboriginal families, a gym, a childcare centre, a gallery and shops. The unfinished building now towers over the small terraces with their cute balconies on Caroline Street.

Another feature is the ‘Welcome to Redfern’ mural, painted onto the remains of a Victorian terrace. It was part of the City of Sydney's 'Eora Journey' project. Executed by the Aboriginal artist Reko Rennie together with young people from the area and curated by Hetti Perkins. Nearby is the Redfern Community Centre where they occasionally held the ‘Blak Market’.

Back to the day of my visit: It’s cloudy but warm. People sit on the steps at their open front doors or somewhere near the entrance inside. It’s quiet, nobody is working on the construction site because it’s Sunday. Otherwise, construction is one of the few businesses still happening these days.

Block Party, May 2006

Caroline Lane is a very narrow alley between Caroline and Lawson Street. I am surprised it even has a name. Two boys about 10 years old are constructing ramps from discarded boards and planks and trying their skateboards on them. The ramps are not high enough and there is no space to get a movement going. As I walk past they explain, “We are building a skateboard ramp.” I say, “I can see that and does it work?” “We are trying to make it work”. The end of the lane is blocked by a part of the construction site, so I have to turn back. The boys have given up and are sitting opposite each other. One has red hair, the other a green top. I think the one with the red hair should have to green top.  

Anzac Day in the time of Corona

Ada Place, Pyrmont on Saturday, 25 April 2020

Today is Anzac Day, no marches. In some suburbs people held the dawn service in front of their houses, each on their own front lawn or porch, even playing “The Last Post”. Some lit a candle at their open window. All this I learned from Facebook, Instagram and TV news as nothing happened in my neighbourhood. But then again I wasn’t up yet to see it.

Ada Place is a narrow lane off Pyrmont Bridge Road, overshadowed by high apartment buildings on each side. They were probably built when Pyrmont was being redeveloped in the late 1990s.

Judging from old photos I’ve seen about Sydney, I imagine Ada Place would have looked quite grim in previous times. Maybe there were workers’ cottages or warehouses on this street when Pyrmont was an operating dock area. It still looks grim - in a bland, new way. But somehow it retains that harbourside ambience, especially at the end towards Pyrmont Bridge Road where I can see old buildings in the sunshine on the other side.

Pyrmont Bridge is normally a busy road. It leads to several thoroughfares and the Anzac Bridge. Today there is hardly any traffic. There is a silence, like a hush in the air.

Back in Ada Place, an older and a younger man are carrying furniture out from a flat into the street. A chair and a cupboard are already there. A dog is whimpering after them. “Come inside, Winston”, I hear a woman’s voice calling. The flats facing this lane on the lower floors are very dark. I get glimpses of the interior here and there. A politician recently complained about people treating the beach as their back garden, meaning they want to stay and not leave immediately after a swim. (Most beaches, except Bondi, just opened again last week, just for a swim). This politician may have a back garden and more, but the people in Ada Place don’t, not even a ray of sunshine.

I wait for you here

Alice Street and Alice Ave, Newtown on Friday, 24 April 2020

At the corner of Alice Street and Edgeware Road is “The Wolf and Honeybee” café. It still has the old writing in blue on white from its former life, ‘Milk Bar Fruit & Veg”. The colour at the last bit of the g has disappeared. The café is closed.

I feel I see more people in sports gear than ever before. Australia - since I know it - has always been remarkable for people wearing jogging pants, gym tights, tiny training shorts and singlets in urban streets. Now it seems to have become the general street gear.

A short walk from the street corner is Alice Avenue. There is a small truck with a big tin barrel, flat at the bottom, a door at the back, and a window at the front. A bit like a gypsy caravan. Both walls on each side of this little street have paintings, one is graffiti, the other a circus scene with skilful patches of graffiti in between. It’s unclear if they belong to the painting or have been inserted afterwards.

I vaguely remember from my early days in Sydney to have visited a factory or warehouse in Newtown, which was converted into artists’ studios. A friend had a studio there in the early 2000s. I have a dim memory that they were in Alice Street at the King Street end. I even think to recognise the spot. Only it is now a huge apartment block with the name ‘Industri’. That would make sense, meaning that they pulled the old premises down to build this one.

Now that I have become quite familiar with Sydney, the places visited in the first months or even years appear in my memory like dreamscapes without being able to locate them properly.

When I look for former factories in Alice Street on the internet, I find ‘The Automatic Totalisators Ltd.’ They produced ticket issuing machines, mainly for race courses. There is a group photo of the workers with the buildings behind from 1921. I am sure for a moment that I’ve found my factory, but then I see the address and an aerial map from 1949 of the complex. It was at the other end of the street and had gone a long time before I came to Sydney.

Alice Street and Alice Lane on Sunday, 26 April 2020

Two days later, I am back in Alice Street. My friend has told me in the meantime that her studio was somewhere else. But I am still obsessed with that factory. So I’ve continued to search and found a record with a photo of the PMU Food Products Ltd, established around 1934. (PMU stands for ‘Pick Me Up’). It looks familiar to me.

I also found a record of the Bradford Cotton Mills, applying to the Newtown Council for the construction of a factory in Alice Street in 1933 which was approved.

I wish I could ask the residents of the older houses in the neighbourhood what was there before the new apartments. But in these times of anxiety and distancing, it seems weird to stop strangers in the street and even more so to ring doorbells.

I move on to Alice Lane. Here a back gate is painted and decorated as if it is the stage of a circus with a red curtain and decorated pillars. Apparently belonging to the same property, a whacky house with an asymmetric design and bright primary colours is looking over the wall.

On another wall, I read 'Aqui Te Espero', ‘I wait for you here’. It makes me feel sad. Everything takes on another meaning during this Pandemic. I read later that it is an official mural by the street artist Nadia Hernandez. It hasn’t been created for this situation.

A bit further along, where Alice Lane turns right, a flat cardboard cat is propped up on a fence. Two Chinese workers are having a smoko break at the backside of a shop. It must be an 'essential' business, or they’re just cleaning up.

The lane continues, crossing another street. The chimneys at Sydney Park are visible in the distance. The quietness around me is not one of the 21st Century on a sunny Sunday in a busy neighbourhood. I feel to have stepped out of time, not quite into the past but somewhere ‘sideways’.

Mural by Hugues Sineux

Aqui Te Espero by Nadia Hernandez

A silent conversation

Sophia Street and Lane, Surry Hills on Saturday, 18 April 2020

This street runs parallel to Foveaux Street. It is long and narrow, going downhill towards the CBD. The upper bit is mainly residential with some terrace houses and small workshops. When I park the car two very young women leave one of the houses, chatting and laughing as if there is no concern in the world. Next door a small poodle is barking and sticking its head through a gap in the fence.

On the other side of the street is an empty lot, asphalted in the middle and weeds growing around it, enclosed by a rusty wire fence. Such places are odd these days when every patch of land is allocated for property development.

Sophia Lane forms a crescent off Sophia Street. One entry into this lane is pleasant. The corner house has a mural painting with a kookaburra and gum trees, almost repeating the gum tree in the street. But the other end looks dark and dingy, the type where you would dump a dead body in the movies. Even in bright daylight, I feel apprehensive walking into it. Absurdly, in the most unpleasant part of this dark lane, the Council deemed it necessary to paint a patch of grey over the wall to cover some pink tagging, thus ruining the original brick. As I have observed before with other patched-up graffiti, they’ve left a bit of it sticking out. Maybe this is because the ones doing these types of painting jobs used to be the people “working for the dole”. It could be a kind of civil sabotage.

Crossing Waterloo Street into the next part is like being transported back into the past, reinforced by the present situation that hardly anybody is around, hardly any cars. The street consists almost entirely of the backside of warehouses and factories. The midday sun brightens the street. I walk by myself, there is nobody else. Maybe it’s not like in the past but our new future? Two dumped chairs are facing each other in a silent conversation. There are several dead rats. The sight makes me think of the plague in Sydney about a hundred years ago. Do you get a disease from going past a dead rat covered with blowflies? I try not to look at them.

Against the wall

Later, when I study my photos more closely, I discover that Sophia Street is the one I photographed in 2001 for my work Windows at Night. I called it ‘Chirico’s Lane’ as it reminded me of Giorgio de Chirico’s Piazza d’Italia paintings. Recently, I thought about this photo and realised that I didn’t know where I had taken it. And here I am. Another random discovery. 

Sophia near Terry Street, April 2020

Sophia Street aka Chirico’s Lane, from ‘Windows at Night’, 2001

Easter Sunday in the time of Corona

Victoria Street, Redfern on Sunday, 12 April 2020

It’s a tiny street. I couldn’t find it at first, though it’s in an area I always drive past to get to Cleveland Street. There is also a small shopping centre and my car mechanic in this part of Redfern. A yellow corner building used to be an ice cream shop and is now empty. A bit shabby, with faded paint and crumbling mortar. It’s still somehow picturesque. A transparent door on the top seems to lead into the light. Otherwise, there are just back doors and garage doors. Music sounds from an open garage that contains a motorbike.

Esther and Violet Street, Surry Hills

There is a small net of alleys behind the warehouse that used to be the gallery of the legendary Ray Hughes. He died in 2017. According to the Sydney Morning Herald, he bought the building in 1987, “when the suburb was more seedy than trendy.” One of these small streets within this net is Raper Street, where Brett Whiteley’s former studio and living space was in another warehouse. His studio has been preserved as a museum.

Esther and Violet are blending into each other, formerly consisting of warehouses or small factories, now converted into residential and office spaces.

Esther Lane is flanked by a yellow-painted house. It creates a stunning glow in the afternoon light. The windows of the opposite building throw an interesting reflection onto the yellow wall. By coincidence, I photographed that street before, late last year, because I was attracted to this light.

Esther Lane in December 2019

To get to Esther and Violet Street I have to turn into Devonshire Street. I drive past a queue of people outside a corner shop. At present, only one or two people are allowed to be in small spaces. But there are still more people waiting outside than usual. I wonder what the attraction is and then see it’s the Bourke Street Bakery. My friend Elke mentioned it just yesterday. Surprisingly, I hadn’t known that bakery, even though I am a baker’s daughter and call myself an urban explorer. 

The very end of Devonshire just before South Dowling opens up like a brand new territory. The new tramline has created open spaces in the city. At this end, there used to be a small park with a playground. Now there is a long strip of lawn. This Easter Sunday is a bright, sunny day and the grass sparkles in the sunlight.

People are lying or sitting on the grass. Only two or three together at the most and far apart from each group, sticking to the new rules. Children from the row of dwellings bordering the lawn are playing and riding their scooters on the surrounding pavement. 

At the end of the lawn, a multi-coloured older building stands alone which declares itself as the “Surry Hills Art District”, the words written on one wall in between comic book style painted figures playing musical instruments. Two women, one in a canary yellow dress, are taking photos. The yellow one is the model. The building had been there before and it was not visible from this end as far as I remember. They must have pulled down a whole row of houses to create space for the tramline. The former Wimbo Park now seems to have shrunk to a fenced-in piece of land with no gate. It has a few young trees randomly dispersed amid otherwise barren, wood chip covered soil as if they are the sole survivors of an attempted and abandoned gardening project.

Do not push the button

Mary Ann Street, Ultimo on Thursday, 9 April 2020

I am constantly thinking about where to be outside and to go for a walk without causing any trouble or getting into trouble. Centennial Park was still open the last time I looked and ok on weekdays, but on the weekend there are too many people. I thought to check out Pyrmont and the waterfront at the end of Harris Street. I stopped in Mary Ann Street on the way. It runs from Wattle to Harris Street and then has another cul-de-sac end at the top. As a pedestrian, you can walk on from that point up some stairs or along a little passageway at the side. This street has some UTS buildings and the old Sydney Technical College which is now TAFE. There is a row of small sandstone terraces with a history plaque mentioning the surgeon John Harris to whom this land had been granted by the ‘Crown’. Two stonemasons built the terraces in 1869 to use as their family homes and rental housing. Another terrace has a small Chinese dumpling restaurant which is open for takeaway. The ‘Fork and Grind Café’ is closed and cordoned off. There is a small park with rose bushes. Two little girls are playing in the grass.

The street is empty, except for some young people with face masks, carrying shopping bags. In front of one of the UTS buildings is a black couch, either dumped or put there for smokers. A man is sitting on it working with his tablet and phone as if it were his office. But mainly the street in this busy part of the city is very empty and deserted. While walking along all by myself, I happen to come upon the Frank Gehry ‘squashed brown paper bag’ building which I could never find before. This is truly a ‘random discovery’.

At the traffic lights is a cardboard device over the push button, advising not to touch it. The lights will change by themselves.

Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, UTS, Sydney, designed by Frank Gehry

Time Capsule 2003

Amelia Street, Waterloo on Monday, 30 March 2020

Yellow Night in Amelia Street from the series Night Cruise, 2003

Amelia Street in 2003

This is one of the streets I went to in 2003 when I first had the idea to record streets with female names. I didn’t continue then. Recently, I found some of the photos I took at the time. One of them was from my project Night Cruise.

Amelia Street is in the middle of the new apartment complex in Waterloo where an enormous factory ground used to be, spanning several blocks. When I came to Sydney in 1997 it was deserted, still remaining like this for years. In 2003 there was the first apartment block on Lachlan Street at the end of Amelia. It must have been just about to be finished. A banner on the building fence read “Now Leasing”. Apart from this, the skyline was empty.

At the dead end of this short street was a scrap metal yard. In its place and beyond, is now the vast complex of a residential area with new streets and shops. The former office building, 24 Amelia Street, is still standing.

Three dingy little terraces are lingering on. Maybe abandoned by now. There are a lot of discarded household goods on the porches. A small lot next to them is empty, protected by a wooden fence with barbed wire on the top. At the corner is a luxury car dealer named ‘Prestige Connex’, which has been there for 28 years. Opposite were small white factory buildings and a take-away shop in 2003. Now apartment buildings have replaced them.

I observe all this from the car. It just doesn’t feel right anymore to loiter in the streets and take photos.

Metal Merchant in 2003

End of Amelia Street in 2020

2020

Ann Street, Surry Hills

2003

After that, I drive to Ann Street. This is the other one from which I’ve found a photo from 2003. It’s divided by Riley Street, leaving only a short dead-end bit at the highest end. The other longer part winds steeply downhill to Commonwealth Street. This is the neighbourhood of Ruth Park’s novel The Harp of the South. 

I have to come back here sometime in the future because today I am not getting out of the car. I park at the upper end from where I can see the crossing to Riley Street. It is 5 pm, business traffic hour, but there are almost no cars. Eery and silent. I recognise the corner where I took the photo in 2003 by the yellow railing along the footpath. It’s still yellow. The side of the building, a small terrace, is now painted a dark grey. Then it was a lighter colour and had the street sign screwed to the wall. In 2003 a few things were happening on that wall. There was a patch of white which presumably was supposed to cover some tagging. But maybe they forgot their ladder and couldn’t get high enough, as some red tagging still sneaked out at the top of that white patch. The council used to cover tags and graffiti with whatever colour. It never matched the walls. The white rectangle in Ann Street proved to be a suitable background for some more stencils, tags and writings.

I don’t think I can do this project any longer, as we are not supposed to leave our homes except for clearly defined purposes. Roaming streets, even by car, may not be part of this.

Maybe I can still do my own suburb Redfern on the way to the grocery and chemist shops?

A serious street in Surry Hills

Mary Street and Mary Lane, Surry Hills on Saturday, 7 March 2020

On the way home from East Sydney where I had my gallery tour this Saturday, I went to Mary Street. I had been in this street a bit in the past but never noticed the name. One part of Mary Street is flanked by the Centennial Plaza, an ugly, soulless office and shop complex. My first computer repair man had a shop there, so I often parked in this street. After that, it continues on past Albion and Reservoir Streets.

This narrow street is home to quite a lot of institutions. The Salvation Army Foster House, the Chinese Masonic Hall, the Australian Chinese Community Association, the NSW Teachers Federation building, a bookshop called Published Art, a few restaurants, a gym or two, and even a brewery.

I feel the street is overwhelmed by the seriousness of so many important places. It looks a bit down and depressed. 

The existence of a Chinese Masonic Hall intrigues me, so I try to find something about it. It is, like any aspect of Chinese history, multifaceted. It was built in 1911, the year when the Qing Dynasty in China came to an end and the Republic of China was formed a year later. It grew out of the Hung League, which was an ancient secret society. By the time of the foundation of the Chinese Masonic Hall, the Hung League was a strong supporter of the republican cause. Like other secret societies of China, it had been connected with crime in the 19th century, known as the Triads (their symbol is a triangle). The founding of the Masonic Hall was meant to end this association with crime and to gain respectability. 

In Mary Lane is an intoxicated young man stumbling around and trying to do something with doorways. I think to leave him in peace and don’t venture very far into it.

At least one place is offering some fun. Or maybe not when you look closer.

Art lives in small streets

Mary Place, Paddington on Friday, 21 Feb 2020

I went to visit some of the galleries for my Saturday gallery tour. One of them is in Mary Place, so I took the opportunity to explore this street. It’s narrow and divided into two parts. The gallery used to be called Mary Place Gallery, now the name is Defiance, a branch of the Newtown gallery of the same name. At the moment there is an exhibition upstairs with drawings by Kevin Connor. He is 88 years old and according to what I’ve read about him, he could be called a flâneur without necessarily using this term himself. He observes and draws the everyday activities of people in the city. One of the drawings was probably done at the Tropicana in Victoria Street which I mentioned in my last post.

Kevin Connor, drawing. Photo taken from exhibition at Deviance Gallery, Mary Place

Around 1958 the Barry Stern Gallery operated here in Mary Place. This was in the days when Paddington was grungy and a no-go zone for ‘respectable’ people. Today most parts of the street look affluent and well-kept. From the odd mix of buildings, you can still recognise the former working-class environment. One young, smart-casually dressed woman walks along, smoking a cigarette and talking on her phone. Another stands at the corner of a shop, also smoking a cigarette. Across is the other property Barry Stern had bought in the 1950s. He converted it into a gallery by joining three terrace houses. His name and founding date are imprinted on the pavement.

An unexpected history lesson

Victoria Street, Kings Cross and Darlinghurst on Thursday, 5 March 2020 

The photography class I am teaching at WEA was scheduled for the Kings Cross field excursion. We meet at the Victoria Street exit of Kings X station in spite of heavy rain. I suggest we could stay a while at the Tropicana Caffe and take photos through foggy windows with raindrops, like the American photographer Saul Leiter. Passing Kings Cross Hotel, there is an especially heavy downpour. We stop outside under an awning for shelter. While there, I try to get some specific colour fields into my photos. That was one of the assignments I gave the students: Follow a colour. We go on to the Tropicana in the Darlinghurst part of Victoria Street. This was the place where the international short film festival Tropfest started in 1993. By the time I had moved from Melbourne to Sydney in 1997 the festival had already spilled out into the street. Rows of chairs and a screen were put into Victoria Street next to the café. Later it moved to Centennial Park and then to Parramatta. The Tropicana Caffe dates back to the 1980s and was, some say it still is, a place where local artists were hanging out to chat with friends and develop creative ideas. Or sit by themselves and draw. I remember it from the late 1990s when it still had its original style. Later it was renovated and lost, in my view, some of its flair. Today the creatives present are the students of my photography class. But sadly, no foggy glass panes.

Later we arrive at the Kings Cross part of Victoria Street near Orwell Street. The rain hadn’t stopped all day. By 4 pm it's dark like on a winter’s day. The lit shop windows, the fading light, the yellowing leaves on the plane trees give the street a slightly European autumnal mood. A slim, young man stands in the middle of the street next to a rubbish bin. It looks "compromised", marked with black and yellow security tape. It accidentally matches the man’s runners. He is guiding the traffic around the bin. After a while, he abandons his mission and tells us some of the histories of the immediate environment.

Here are the Butler Stairs, built in 1869 to create access between the higher and wealthier Potts Point and the lower and poorer neighbourhood of Woolloomooloo. That’s where the servants and maids lived who worked for the rich people up on the ridge, climbing up the 103 steps possibly several times a day. I’m disappointed to learn that the stairs are not named after the servants, but after an Irish draper called James Butler. He was an alderman on the Sydney Council and instrumental in the building of the stairs.

Then our new tour guide tells us about Juanita Nielsen who had lived nearby at 202 Victoria Street. She was a journalist and activist in the 1970s, fighting against demolition, redevelopment plans, and the forceful eviction of residents in Kings Cross. She disappeared in 1975. This mystery has never been solved, but it is assumed that she was kidnapped and murdered.

Another local resident of Victoria Street was the Green Ban activist Mick Fowler who was fighting for the same cause as Juanita. He has a plaque in his memory at the side of the stairs.

Enmore and Stanmore

Marian Street and Marian Lane, Enmore on Monday, 24 February 2020

Late afternoon and sunny weather with a few fluffy clouds. Marian Lane features the back walls and garage doors of houses in Marian and Metropolitan Street. Lots of doves on the powerlines. Two schoolgirls are walking along slowly. Someone in the far distance is shaking out his carpet. The stop sign at an intersection is upside down. People leave things for others to take, a packet of clay, a printer wrapped in plastic with the sign ‘free to take’, a box with toy fruit and veggies that said something like ‘never used’ or ‘never opened’. 

Marian Street has shops and graffiti at the end towards Enmore Road and then starts to be quiet, tree-lined, and relaxed. Nice houses, all old, well kept, different styles. All the same trees, I think a type of bottle brush, not in flower at the moment, so not sure. I thought it would be great to live in this beautiful, green street and have all the shops, cafés, pubs, and the Enmore Theatre just around the corner. 

Myrtle Street and Lane, Stanmore on Monday, 2 March 2020

Late afternoon, the weather just changed from very hot to very windy and a lot cooler. There is a Catholic Primary school on one street corner, and another Catholic institution further along. ‘Sisters of Mercy’ with the invitation ‘all welcome’ or similar. There is a gallery on the first street corner I came to. Houses are old, in good condition, painted and decorated, nice gardens. A group of young people is waiting at the door of one of the houses. People come home with their children from school or daycare, and other people come home from work in their Mercedes and Audis, using the garage doors in Myrtle Lane West. They get out of their cars, still in office suits, to take in the rubbish bins. The lanes are a bit confusing. They don’t have street names displayed. The planes fly low, making huge screaming noises. A white fashionable dog walks purposefully along the footpath all by herself. A woman seems to be concerned, but it’s not her dog. She gives up.   

Graffiti in May Lane

May Street and May Lane, St Peters on Sunday, 23 Feb 2020

I often drive through May Street when I go to Marrickville, and I took photos in the area for other projects in the past. Tugi and Dianna have their framing workshop Graphic Art Mount in May Lane where at least half of Sydney’s artists get their exhibition framing done, including me. May Lane is known for its graffiti. Tugi made the best out of this fact and invited street artists a few years back to do graffiti on the walls officially, like a proper exhibition with opening nights. There is still graffiti everywhere.

Today the shop is closed because it’s Sunday. A fair amount of people pass through the lane. Some are doing a phone video with a young woman in yellow. Some walk their dog, and some come from St Peters train station. 

May Street has a large lawn with some trees, a small playground, and a football oval. There is another green strip named “May Street Playground”. It’s a tiny bit of grass with a couple of trees and two benches. Someone left a French novel, torn jeans, and a towel.

There are artists’ studios in a red brick building and still a lot of old workshops and traders. Sadly, at a closer look, many of them have a ‘For Lease’ sign displayed. At the Country and Town Hotel end of May Street, they are just finishing the WestConnex road works of this section. 

Olive…

…and Welcome

Update on 19 June: When I edited my photos from this day, I looked up some names of the graffiti writers. One of them is called ‘Land Writer(s)’ which is an Aboriginal street art duo, making art about indigenous concerns. Most entries I’ve found were from around 2016. There was a Sydney Morning Herald article featuring a piece they did in Brisbane about black death in custody.