Frog Hollow

Ann Street, Surry Hills on Saturday, 16 January 2021

I am back in Ann Street after that time in March last year in the middle of the first lockdown, when I didn’t dare to get out of the car. It’s a sunny Saturday. There are not many people and not many cars, and plenty of parking spots. But when I turn around the corner into Commonwealth Street I see lots of young people queuing up for something. I’m curious but I don't go nearer to ask. We just recently had a new outbreak in the Northern Beaches and now have to wear masks in a crowd. And people don’t like to talk to strangers anymore.

The quiet street bathed in sunlight, containing the heat between the buildings, makes it hard to imagine the surroundings 100 years ago. Now, most of the small terraces are neat, with security grills and nicely painted doors and geraniums flowering on balconies. Only the imagination can strip this away and go back to the times when Frog Hollow was the most horrible slum in Surry Hills from about 1900 to 1925 and even later.

Ann Street bordered Frog Hollow on the lower side. Originally there was a creek and swampy ground. Although not suited for housing, the gully was developed by greedy speculators. The houses were dark, damp and overcrowded and only accessible by steep stairs with poorly lit, narrow laneways.

It was home or headquarters for many gangsters, one of them Samuel ‘Jewey’ Freeman, the leader of the Riley Street Gang. Kate Leigh became his lover in 1913, then a thief and prostitute who would later rule the crime scene of Sydney together with her rival Tilly Devine.

Frog Hollow is now a park. The old stairs, leading down from Riley and Albion Street, are still there.

Adelheid

Adelaide Street and Place, Surry Hills on Saturday, 12 December 2020

In the 1920s and 30s, two women ruled the crime scene of illegal alcohol and drugs in Sydney. Tilly Devine in Darlinghurst and Kate Leigh in Surry Hills. Kate Leigh had a sly grog shop at 212 Devonshire Street in the flat above her fruit and veggie shop. Adelaide Place is just around the corner.

Places in Australia named Adelaide might refer rather to the city than a female name. But in fact, the city is named after the German princess Adelheid who married the English King William IV.

The houses in this street are pretty. Some have blue or yellow window frames. Bougainvillea is growing over garden fences. Further down is a colossal building occupying a whole block. I notice cubist-looking concrete ornaments intersecting the facade. I read that it is the former Readers’ Digest office and a highly significant modernist building, designed by architect John James, sculptor Douglas Annand and landscape architect Bruce Mackenzie. The construction was completed in 1967.

At the back of the building in Adelaide Place are cast iron statues with bull horns, reminiscent of ancient cult symbols. On the opposite side, a white-painted brick wall is covered with tags. Posters announce the upcoming Sydney Festival in January 2021. Walking towards Devonshire Street, I pass small houses, one a sandstone cottage that must be quite old. Somewhere two ibises are watching from the balustrade of a balcony. Around the corner, I find Kate Leigh’s former shop. It’s now called Jazzy Café Bar and is closed until further notice because of COVID. According to an online travel guide, it was the ‘Sly’, just a few years earlier. It probably had many incarnations since Kate Leigh died in 1964.

For Tilly Devine see the entry about Charlotte Lane, Darlinghurst published on 13 May 2022.