Cats and Dogs

Myra Road and Margaret Street, Dulwich Hill on Saturday, 30 May 2020

Myra runs off Canterbury Road, descending to the train tracks below. Water is running down in the deep gutter like in a creek. The street consists mainly of small blocks of flats from the 1950s or 60s and some single houses in between. On the porch of one of these houses, an effigy is sitting in an armchair: runners, pants, a jumper, a black scarf, face mask. It looks eerie and strangely realistic. While taking a photo, I am a bit scared that it either might suddenly move and yell at me or that it is indeed a dead person.

I pass a woman with her children in front of one of the blocks of flats. She tells the smallest: “Call Daddy", who sits on a balcony and smokes. Daddy says: “The water pressure is low.” That seems to be the reason for the road works at the top of the street. An older man, his clothes matching the traffic cones, is watching the progress of the work.

Myra Lane

Margaret Street is residential with tall trees. Quiet. The only sounds come from invisible birds. It has dark brick family homes, two of them are empty, and the others are very well cared for. There are also a couple of small 50s blocks. An old woman with a shopping bag on wheels is doing something near one of them. When I come closer she is crossing the street very slowly and busies herself with the rubbish bins. I realise that she is collecting bottles. In another part of the street, I notice a discarded black backpack on the green strip. An old man carrying shopping bags comes slowly towards me. “Is that a dog?” He asks. I tell him that it is a bag. “Oh, I thought it was a dog.” That’s how my first English language lesson book at school started: “Is it a dog? No, it is not a dog, it is a fox”. We both smile and he walks on.  

Isabella among the smells of industry

Isabellla Street, Camperdown on Thursday, 28 May 2020

Isabella is a very short street which I first couldn’t find. When I finally drive into this narrow one-way lane, there is a big SUV in front of a new apartment building, blocking the way. A man with a big, black beard is talking to the driver. I immediately think that the car is collecting a COVID-19 test sample. At other times I would have thought they are just having a chat. The bearded man opens the garage door, but the car drives off. There is something strange about that car since I see it again a bit later, parking around the corner, then driving away, apparently having gone around the block as it comes back and enters Isabella Street from the wrong side.

This part of Camperdown has an industrial feel. Even though most of the old warehouses are now residential dwellings and the former factories are gone. At the Layton Street exit is a heavily fenced and barb-wired property that warns of high voltage. It has a rusty, crane-like contraption with a hook in the shape of an anchor. In Isabella Street are three small one-level terraces wedged between two dark brick warehouses.

I imagine the whole street would have been lined with terraces, like in working-class areas in England. These three are the leftovers. Maybe the warehouses came later. It’s dark in the street and the houses look utterly depressing. They were probably built to house the people working in the surrounding factories, as there was a foundry, a tannery, a coach works, biscuit factories, soap manufacturers, Fowler’s pottery and more.

For Eliza

Eliza Street, Newtown on Wednesday, 27 May 2020

When I researched Georgina Street I came across Eliza Donnithorne who lived nearby on King Street in the mid-1800s. The legend goes that on her wedding day, she and the assembled guest waited in vain for the groom to arrive at her home for the wedding breakfast. When the guest had gone, she locked the house and never went out or let anyone come in. When she died 30 years later, they found her in her wedding dress. The food on the dining table had mouldered into dust. She is buried with her father in the Camperdown Cemetery. The headstone is still there.

I thought it was very romantic to have named a street after her, but this doesn't seem to be the case. According to one source, the name was derived from the daughter of Thomas Rowley. The only information I could find about him is that he was born in the Colony, classified as Australian Royalty and had a daughter named Eliza, among other children. 

At the corner of Eliza and Lennox Street is the backside of the Court House Hotel, closed for now. A bit further is a pile of rubbish dumped near a graffitied wall. A thin older man, doubled over from the waist, is trying to reassemble a rollator.

Next is the back side of the Newtown Fire Station. At 5 Eliza Street is the Newtown School of Art, founded in 1916. It existed beforehand in another building, established in 1899 as the Newtown Workman’s Institute. It was rather a recreational institution than an art school. “It featured a library, lecture hall, billiards hall, and small rooms for reading, retiring, smoking, games, meeting and classrooms.” (cited from the Gritty Newtown Historical Walking Tour site). The library sign is still there, maybe even the library, but everything is closed because of the Coronavirus lockdown, so I can’t check it out. Part of the building is now the home of the theatre Old 505 in memory of its former address at 505 Elizabeth Street in Surry Hills.

Near the library entrance, is a mural in memory of a missing person, a young man from Maroubra.

From here on, the street is paved with red bricks laid out in a herringbone pattern. It looks like a pedestrian zone, but cars are permitted to drive through from the King Street end. It's a bit confusing for pedestrians. There is also the backside of the Newtown police station, a rather grand building from 1885.

A pub at the corner is called Websters. I read that the ex-convict John Webster opened a shop at this spot named New Town Stores which allegedly gave the suburb its name. 

Georgina and her neighbours

Georgina Street and Lane on Tuesday, 26 May 2020

It’s the first day with a promise of sunshine after a week of rain and cold. But when I arrive at my destination, the sky turned dark again. It's starting to drizzle. Despite the weather, a toddler is running around in the playground. An unusual sight, first almost like a shock: “Is that safe?” Playgrounds have just opened to the public on the weekend. 

When researching the local history, I read that Georgina Street was the most prestigious address in Newtown. Indeed there is a row of terrace houses, unlike any others I have seen elsewhere. They have another storey, rising above the filigree balconies or winter garden encasements. Each building has its individual ornaments and decorations. Some are run down, with peeling paint and crumbling tiles in the front yard. A couple of them are derelict and deserted. Others are renovated and freshly painted.

The houses adjacent to Warren Ball Avenue, facing Hollis Park, are particularly well-kept and elegant. There are two old stone pillars guarding the end of the street. On one of them, it says L’Avenue in chiselled letters. Beyond is Fitzroy Street. It looks like the poor cousin of Georgina, lined with low, dark terraces. Paradise ends here.

The grand houses were built by Magistrate John Kettle around 1880 when he had purchased that piece of land. Georgina Street is named after his daughter, so it says in the Newtown History Project pages. It also says it was a planned development unusual for Sydney and inspired by the planned squares in London and Brighton.

I try to peer through a downstairs window framed by dark green curtains. The room is quite large. Then I notice two dogs, only their heads visible above the window sill. They are hard to recognise through the reflection of trees and the sky. When I look at the photo later, taken with a flashlight, there are only two pairs of green glowing eyes. 

I am particularly attracted to this house. It has a mix of neglect and care.

A bit further down is a funny repetition of a dog in a window. This one is a deserted house. The dog is a picture on a poster. 

The area was and is home to a substantial Jewish community. I don’t know exactly when this began. At least since around 1918 when the Synagogue was built.

Warren Ball Avenue, once simply L’Avenue

Fitzroy Street

Georgina Lane shows the backside of places, as lanes often do, and speaks of a simpler life.

Two old friends

Alma Avenue, Enmore on Tuesday, 19 May 2020

The entry from Stanmore Road is almost invisible, hidden behind trees until you are just before it. On one side and a whole block down is the Cyprus Club member’s car park. It’s huge. A property developer would say, "what a waste of real estate". At least I knew one who did say that about large open-air car parks. I wonder if they used to have so many guests at their events to need that much space. One part seems to be leased by the Allied Express delivery company. There are many vans with that logo and drivers organising their pick-ups and deliveries. A little later, one after the other, the Allied vans are coming down this narrow, one-way lane. It seems I have picked a bad time, but in a moment they are all gone.

This street has some houses facing it and some turning their backs. It feels cozy. There are two chairs of a different kind next to each other like old friends. When I return, I notice a stall with a tent roof and two women sitting under it on the other side of the car park. At first, I don't understand what they are doing there, but then I see the sign: COVID-19 Specimen Collection Centre.

The World is Yours

Elizabeth Street, Newtown on Sunday 17 May 2020

I have never been in that street before. It’s where City Road becomes King Street, just before Missenden Road. It’s only a short lane and leads to the backside of the King Street shops and restaurants. I find it fascinating to see the unpolished side of all these places, where the empty food boxes and milk crates are stored, a drum with cooking oil, a baby chair, and a makeshift shed. Some material hangs on a back gate to a yard that looks like a raincoat for a dead animal.

On the other side are the backyards of a row of terrace houses of yet another lane. At the end is a fenced-in part of Sydney University with student accommodation.

It is Sunday late afternoon. The sun just came out from the clouds to say good night, highlighting the graffiti message ‘The World Is Yours’. At a corner a car lurks like a living being, ready to pounce.

Restaurants are allowed to have guests, ten at a time, for the first time since the lockdown. When I walk past the windows in King Street I see some people sitting at tables which has become an unusual sight. Not all tables are used. That would be too crowded. Staff is wiping down the surfaces more carefully than ever, it seems.

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

Harley Quinn

Harley Street, Alexandria on Monday, 11 May 2020

I go to Harley Street in honour of the ‘Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn’ from the film Birds of Prey. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have recognised it as a female name. The film and the female characters in it are hilarious and very liberating, foremost Harley Quinn played by Margot Robbie.

At the corner of Harley Street is the Parkview Hotel. What park it’s viewing is unclear to me. I guess it’s the oval across Mitchell Road. The pub is closed, like all pubs in this time of lockdown. An improvised sign says ‘Pop Up Bottle Shop’ in uneven letters, picked out by the sun from the surrounding shadows as if it is on stage.

Although it’s only around 2 pm the light has already a late afternoon glow and creates strong shadows everywhere in the street. At another corner is a workshop called ‘Unique Plaster’ with a closed red shutter door. An ibis standing on a rock against a blue sky with fluffy white clouds is painted on the corner wall, like a company icon. Nearby in a window, a note tells the passer-by that there are desk spaces available for lease if you can’t go to the office or can’t work from home. 

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. 

Empty

Rose Street, Darlington on Friday, 1 May 2020

In both my old street directories from 1996 and 2007, there is a Rose Street at the University of Sydney campus, near the Swimming Pool between Darlington and Abercrombie Street. It’s not there anymore as hard as I try to find even a tiny trace of it. I remember the street from the past, as I’ve sometimes looked for a parking spot there. I believe there were wire mesh fences and low buildings which could have housed maintenance workshops. Now the recently built Business School takes up the whole space from Abercrombie Street to Darlington Lane.

It is Friday at about 1 pm on a sunny, windy day. The streets and places are empty apart from a few people who are most likely students living on the University campus. One young man carries a box of beer in his arms while he's riding at high speed on his skateboard. This earns the admiration of two youngsters who are passing by, and mine as well. These three are the only people I see. There are hardly any cars. Normally this area teams with people and cars queue up at the pedestrian crossings where you rarely have a moment without people traversing.

Laundry is drying in a backyard in Darlington Lane. I find this strangely reassuring.

We are closed for now

Rose Street and Tracey Lane, Chippendale on Tuesday, 28 April 2020

Rose Street runs from Cleveland Street, crosses Myrtle and later curves around to end in Buckland Street. There are some discarded household goods, a mattress and a chair. At first, the appearance of chairs in my photos was accidental. But now I am looking out for them. I read them as a metaphor for this state of ‘social distancing’ and isolation from each other. The chairs are empty because we don’t sit on them to be together with people. They are discarded because people have no guests and no parties. This chair is facing the backside of the mattress as if it is a film screen and has a beer bottle sitting on it.

It’s a grey day. The cream and white colours of walls and houses stand out nicely in this light. The grey colours, of which there are plenty, don’t fare so well. The part of Rose Street towards Cleveland Street is the location of The Duck Inn, a cozy and popular pub. The two blackboards on each side of a shuttered door say: “We are Closed for Now”. The other popular pub in the area, The Rose Hotel, is - despite its name - not in Rose but in Shepherd Street. Yellow autumn leaves are scattered on the pavement. Somewhere, red geraniums are still in full bloom. Sydney always has several things from the four seasons at once.

Tracey Lane is a short walk down from The Duck Inn. I had to find it with the navigator, there is no street name. It has an old abandoned factory and flats in other small industrial buildings. A ladder is propped up against a wall and I hear drilling noises and hammering from inside one building.  

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

The resurrected teddy bear

Juliett Street, Enmore on Tuesday, 21 April 2020

Juliett Street is fairly long. At one end it’s a cul-de-sac with a little green spot and trees. Beyond is the Marrickville Metro Shopping Centre.

The street is residential, apart from the corner café “West Juliett” which is open for takeaway only. The houses are mainly ‘Federation’ architecture which is, as I learnt in the meantime, what the British Edwardian style is called in Australia.

I meet a couple of cats, one settling for a snooze under a car, the other sitting on her own front porch and looking pretty. There is a truck with a flatbed made of wooden planks and on it sits a rusted metal toolbox. The number plate says ‘Historic Vehicle’.

Someone in a nearby house is getting a contactless delivery. Someone else is moving into a pretty Federation house a little further along. Such activities are still possible. The houses in this street are well cared for but there is one in ruins, only part of the back and side walls still standing. The front garden is overgrown and littered with plastic bags and household debris.

I wonder if such things happen when there is an inheritance dispute. In another place, three guys in working gear are hanging out in the front yard together, smoking. 

Opposite there is a house with a big white cross, white artificial flower garlands and teddy bears on the porch. It gives me the awful feeling that a child has died in the family. Then I see Easter eggs woven in between the ribbons on the fence and the tree in the street is decorated with pink, red and yellow garlands and red globes. So it may have been just for Easter, which wasn’t so long ago. But why the teddy bear? 

The girl with the unicorn mask

Clara Street, Ada Street and Lane, Ethel Street, Erskineville on Sunday, 19 April 2020

This is a tangle of narrow streets all weaving into each other. That’s what it feels like when I walk here. But looking at the map, they form almost a square with Clara Street dividing it in the middle. Mostly small terraces, a couple of warehouse-style buildings and one grey-painted block of flats, which was obviously a factory as the chimney is still there. Maybe the cottages were originally created for the workers of that factory.

First, I walk along Clara Street and discover the Tom Bass Sculpture Studio School. I researched it a couple of years ago to do some clay sculpting courses. But never made it to even look at the place. Tom Bass was a friend of the still-life painters Fred Jessup and Margaret Olley.

From there I turn left into Ada Lane, and after following it around, I suddenly am in Ethel Street. There is a playground in the middle, cordoned off because of 'virus contamination danger'. On one side is a multi-coloured bench, free to use, and a crucified teddy bear nailed to a tree. Ada Lane has two parts, continuing beyond the playground.

Further along, I see small children playing. They may be about 7 or 8 years old, three boys and one girl. She has a unicorn hood on her head. They are really engaged in their play. When I come closer, I stop to photograph an interesting corner house. I am a bit wary not to disturb the kids, but they don’t even seem to see me. By now their magic play has gone into a more realistic realm as I hear the girl saying: “No, you can’t have that chair because my dad found it.”

This area creates the idea in me that the people who live here all know each other and that they are somehow environmentally aware, alternative and friendly with their neighbours.