Margaret Street, Rozelle on Tuesday, 16 June 2020

The street is on the Balmain side of Victoria Road near Iron Cove Bridge. It goes down towards the waterfront ending with a curved wall. There are plaques with photos and text informing about the industrial history of this place. To the east of Margaret Street was the site of the Balmain Power Station, constructed in two phases between 1908 and 1956. Next to it was the Monsanto factory complex. The plaques show photos of these colossal industries with their smoking chimneys. It looked horrendous. Preceding this in the 19th century there were iron, steel and timber works and small cottages. Some of them are still here and so is the old administration building of the power station. The rest is all apartment blocks overlooking the water.

I notice that the curved wall already existed in earlier photos from the 1930s. The wall is high above the water. You have to go down many steep stairs to get to Bridgewater Park and the promenade. There is the old pump house, which has been preserved as a heritage piece. Formerly this was all industrial with coal conveyors, coal stores and turbine houses, probably inaccessible except for the workers. My research tells me that before the industrial period, there was a public ferry at the end of Margaret Street. The development of this area as residential started around 2000. There is a photo from 2002 which shows some new buildings, but the waterfront was still used as yards for new cars.

While strolling along and turning corners, I encounter slim, young women with prams, dressed in gym tights and jogging tops. They all look the same. From previous observations, I have come to the conclusion that there is a generic type of young, fit mothers in certain affluent neighbourhoods. But maybe it is really the same woman in this case.

Schoolchildren are on an excursion down at the waterfront. Janitors are rolling the rubbish bins back to their designated areas. In one downstairs window, I see a cardboard sign “Black Lives Matter”. Right opposite is a small park with the Australian Flag in the middle. I notice that two of the streets in the new apartment complex have Aboriginal names, Waragal and Wulumay. I learn from the internet that they mean mackerel and snapper. These translations are from the book “The Sydney Language” which the Aboriginal linguist Jakelin Troy compiled with words used across the many language groups in the Sydney area and with approximate spelling. This area is the land of the Wangal people of the Dharug (Eora) language group.

Today I am testing the arbitrary left/right/right repeat method used by some other street explorers. I turn left into Terry Street. Lots of schoolchildren here, a sight which is still somehow unusual. There is a linden-green door in the corner building to Wellington Street. It has a sign which promises ‘Treat Dreams’. At first, I thought it was a brothel. When looking closer I notice the drawing of a cake on that sign.

I pass a primary school with children playing in the yard. Then a run-down Victorian house which nevertheless has new plants in the front garden, the nursery labels are still attached. After that an upholstery business. An old Mercedes Cabriolet, exhaling toxic fumes, is just exiting out from there. The equally vintage driver is having a chat with the business owner, both ignoring the clouds of smoke.

At the end is busy Victoria Road. There are major road works going on, either for WestConnex or for the Metro. I wonder what has been pulled down for that. The derelict former Tigers’ Football club building is still there. Even when in use it has looked like a social realist’s architectural nightmare.