Charlotte Lane, Darlinghurst on Saturday, 14 November

Some streets or lanes give me a special tingle. The walls whisper. It’s not just because they have features of the past. In this case, a row of brick and sandstone houses are from an earlier time than the usual Victorian terrace. What I see in my mind’s eye are not the old Colonial times but the early 20th Century. Crammed life in narrow streets, small corner shops, men with hats, ragged-looking children, no trees, no flower pots.

Darlinghurst was the domain of gangster boss Tilly Devine. I look up the history and specifically search for Charlotte Lane. In this lane, the founder of the first Razor Gang, Norman Bruhn, was shot dead outside Mac’s sly-grog and cocaine den in 1927. Bruhn had come from Melbourne and thought that it was ridiculous that Sydney’s crime world was run by two women, the other being Kate Leigh. Serves him right. It is said that this killing was executed by one of Tilly’s gang, Frankie Green. But there are other possibilities, one being the owner of the den, Joe McNamara, who had been robbed by Bruhn and his mates sometime earlier.

This end of Darlinghurst struggles against the bullies from the city. The high buildings of College Street tower over old Charlotte Lane.