Maria Lane, Newtown on Monday, 1 June 2020
It’s a very small lane parallel to King Street at the backside of the Botany View Hotel. I don’t understand why the hotel's name is Botany View as the suburb of Botany seems far away. The back wall has elaborate graffiti by Scott Marsh. While editing this entry for posting a year later, I am reading up about him. He paints large murals with critical social and political commentary. In June 2020 at the height of the Black Lives Matter campaign, he had painted a burning NSW police car in a lane in Redfern. The mural was wiped out by the police the same day. It's ironic because, some years earlier, the police arrested someone who had defaced a Scott Marsh mural in Erskineville.
On the other side of the lane is the Tom Foster Community Centre. It still seems to be in lockdown. From here you can see the chimneys of the brickworks at Sydney Park. A dominant view in this part of Newtown. The hotel should have been called Brickworks View Hotel.
Thinking again about the location, I realise that Botany is not so far away if you drew a straight line from higher up. So one day, I should go and check out the rooftop garden.
