Light my heart

Margaret Street and Lane, Newtown on Monday, 16 March 2020

I came here in a dampened mood, as on a Monday everything is worse about the Corona crisis than the week before. It’s now declared to be a pandemic. The day is grey and rainy. Margaret Street in Newtown is hidden in between a labyrinth of small streets, one-ways, dead-ends. It has some wall paintings and the most peculiar-looking apartment building, brick, maybe 50s with a gabled roof. Very narrow, wedged between a fence and an older house.

The street curves and where it does three bikes are parked side by side, a big one, a middle-sized and a tiny children’s bike. Reminds me of the three Bears from ‘Goldilocks’.

It is quiet. There aren’t many cars driving through, maybe because they don’t find it, as happened to me first. But some people are emerging from somewhere to go somewhere. A man is rummaging in the rubbish bins of the peculiar apartment block for glass bottles. The houses here have their own character: creative, environmentalist, neat, neglected or entirely absent.

Margaret Lane shows the backside of such places. There’s rubbish including chairs. Discarded chairs seem to become an accidental theme in these discoveries. 

Not quite "The Truman Show"

Myrtle Street, Marrickville on Sunday, 8 March 2020

This street has a row of residential houses on one side and small factory buildings on the other. Many family homes here are neatly renovated, especially the one at the corner coming from Victoria Road. In the sunlight breaking through clouds, it reminds me of the movie “The Truman Show”. Almost too perfect to be true.

I guess the neat houses belong to Europeans, maybe Portuguese or Greek. An old man is pottering around in front of his house, picking up some stray twigs. In the middle of the street is a stormwater canal, coming out from under the footpath on both sides. It has a sign that warns of sewage overflow. There are symbols to tell us: do not swim, do not sit here with a fishing line, and do not let a dog go here. I don’t think anyone would be tempted. A stale smell is wafting from the trickle of water.

One of the factories is a yoghurt manufacturer. Next, a mysterious old house with a rusty corrugated iron roof hides behind a wall and trees.

At the other end of Myrtle Street, I look over to a patch of green hedges and shrubs, a factory chimney and an old, tall house, a bit grander than the ones nearby. That’s where the pedestrian railway crossing is. It looks from far like a remnant from a bygone era. Another sign tells me that the street is subject to flooding.

Writings on the wall

Maud Lane, Marrickville on Sunday, 8 March 2020

On my way to Maud Lane, I passed by Maude Street which isn't on any map. It runs alongside the Braddock Playground, with only grass and bushes and a sandstone arch leading into it. Someone is meditating under the arch.

The street turns around a corner and becomes Maud Lane. It runs along the railway track. The first view around the bend is a section with rubbish bins, a container with pallets piled on top, and a truck in front of a low white building. Squashed cardboard boxes, a battered suitcase and an abandoned shopping trolley are sitting right under a bent sign that tells everyone not to dump rubbish there. Is this ignorance, vandalism or civil disobedience?

The lane has workshops, garages and warehouses on both sides. Number 25 insists that the lane’s name is Maude with an ‘e’, defying the street directories’ spelling. It is empty and silent. Good to come on a Sunday.

Funny how I get excited by the sight of a rather ugly street. The feeling comes from something unexplainable, a vague memory of industrial streets in my home town Hamburg. But also from the fact that this place, like so many in Marrickville, is yet untouched by new apartment block developments. A couple of people are working. One is behind half-closed roller doors, and the other is driving a forklift from one end of the lane to the other. Apart from them, I am all alone. After heavy rain, the sun has come out and it’s warm.

While editing the photos I enjoy looking at all the details on the walls. Not so much the big elaborate graffiti, but the small scribbles, messages, colours, and objects leaning against them. In one section a few pieces of broken timber are leaning against a black wall. They look like words from an ancient language, like runes. Now, in August, five months later, they look to me like the “writing on the wall”, an ominous warning.

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.

Sketchy notes about streets named Mabel

Sunday, 2 February 2020

Today is the first day of my project Random Discoveries. The plan is to visit randomly chosen streets of Sydney and find out what they can tell me.

But how would I make my choices?

There is a worldwide community of urban investigators. Some drift aimlessly through the city. Others follow an algorithm to find places they otherwise wouldn’t go to.

I’m going to visit streets with female names in honour of the female street explorers past and present.

I start with the letter M.

Mabel Street, Hurstville

Hot Sunday, a sleepy street with old trees. Not many people around. Two kids are running into their house. A young man is driving into a carport. Two people are talking on the footpath, and someone is working in front of his garage. Otherwise quiet, and not many cars. But the ones coming through are fast and very impatient. 

Mabel Street, Kingsgrove

It’s a very deserted street, no old trees. Some houses might date back to the 1930s, while others are new. Some are just about to be finished. Almost nobody around. One property with tall white garden gnomes attracts my attention. There is a man working in his garage, drilling. He couldn’t have heard me over the noise. Nevertheless, after I have taken a photo, he comes to his fence and looks suspiciously around. I get into my car and leave.