Angel

Angel Street, Newtown on Friday, 5 March 2021

This street has a lot of variety, considering that it’s only small. Here is the old, derelict factory which you can see from the platform of Newtown Station. It must be one of the last abandoned industrial sites in Sydney still standing untouched. Further down is a community garden before the street turns into a footpath with a village feel to it. I imagine the two empty shops at a corner to have been the butcher and the baker in days long ago. The news agency was in the next street. I recognise it from the peeling ‘Daily Telegraph’ sign.

Down the "Olive"

Caroline Street, Balmain on Thursday, 21 January 2021

Caroline Street has a deserted-looking 60s block of flats. But if I took a photo, somebody would have watched me from inside through the dusty windows and broken blinds. And while I am thinking this, someone actually does come bursting out through the front door. Instead of asking the expected suspicious questions, he greets me very friendly like an old mate and rushes away. There is another almost derelict house where a down-at-heel-looking woman just enters. Otherwise, most places look neat.

Caroline Lane leads down to the former Colgate Palmolive factory at the waterfront. It has been converted into luxury apartments. The factory was established at this location in 1923. Local residents made up most of the staff. According to interviews with former employees ‘everyone had a cousin down the “Olive”’.

Ref: Lackey and Vardabasso, Down the ‘Olive: A memory of Colgate-Palmolive in Balmain, New South Wales, 1994.

Caroline

Caroline Lane, St Peters on Friday, 4 December 2020

Caroline runs parallel to May Street and has a lot of graffiti. It’s a backside alley lined with fences and factories. There is a gym and a poster printer. A broken model of an 18th-century ship is dumped outside one of the garage doors. Maybe it’s meant to be the HMS Endeavour?

A sketchy, black-and-white Spiderman rises above a geometrical graffiti. A paper sign says “Do not paint here”. At the corner of May Lane is a mural by Reubszz. When I look around towards St Peters station I see a construction site, a high building, almost finished. Just there I took a photo of a grey old house many years ago.

It’s hot today. What am I doing here?

Ghost Signs

Rose Lane, Darlington on Sunday, 8 November 2020

I had forgotten to look for Rose Lane after I found out a few months ago that Rose Street doesn’t exist anymore in Darlington.

I came past it recently by coincidence. It is a very small lane with an old brick factory building on one side. Through the wire mesh windows, I can see a courtyard with trees and plants. Some parts of the windows still have dusty, old pieces of frosted glass. Through one of them, I suddenly recognise the head of a female mannequin. It looks eerie, a bit like a person trapped in a cage.

People live in this building. Around the corner are two doors in bright colours. There still is the name of the factory in faded letters. Only a few of them are recognisable. A young woman with two little children has just arrived at one of the doors and is ringing the bell. It’s an old-fashioned one where you turn a metal knob, like winding up a clock.

On the other side of the lane is the Darlington Activity Club, a low brick building with tin rubbish bins in the courtyard. Looking across from here is another lane with yet another former factory at the corner. Here I can read quite clearly that it was called Blue Diamond and has a pale blue triangle painted on the brickwork.

Rosemary's Windows

Crystal Street and Crystal Lane West, Petersham on Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Crystal Lane West has an old factory building which is now something fancy. A luxury car is just driving into the garage. It also has a 30s-style block of flats with a paved small courtyard, outdoor laundry, and washing lines. Some elaborate graffiti marks this lane, one with a huge mosquito. When I try to find out later if the mosquito is a logo for a particular graffiti artist, I come across this history: “Mosquito” was the name of an RAF combat aircraft also used by the Australian Air Force. On 2nd May 1945, one of these fighter planes disintegrated above Petersham. The pilots couldn’t save themselves as they were not high enough for their parachutes to open. One of the pilots landed tragically in the playground of the Petersham Public School. I wonder if the graffiti of the mosquito recalls this local event or if it’s an amazing coincidence.

I pass a car repair shop at the corner of Crystal Street. The wall bordering the yard shows a Bushell “ghost sign”, a remnant of a past commercial era. This section of the street has some empty shops. Among them, a harpsichord shop with a rusty banner alongside the awning, and a store that once sold Jackson cigarettes and Toblerone chocolate as the blue panels below the barred windows tell me. On the wall, a newer poster demands ‘Immediately Housing for the Homeless’. Mmh, good cause, but bad grammar. A bit further along is a Metropolitan Community Church with the LGBTQIA+ flag flying on its roof. On the other side is John While & Sons, “spring manufacturers established 1885”, now an apartment block. There are more small shops on that side; one identifies as an op shop by its display of secondhand clothes and knick-knacks visible behind the dark windows. This shop and all the others nearby are closed until further notice. 

Crystal Street, Petersham on Thursday, 7 January 2021

Today I start at the part of Crystal Street, where I once worked for the photo media artist Rosemary Laing in 2006/07. She had her live-in studio in an old, unconverted warehouse. It was very cold in winter there, in spite of portable heaters, hot cups of tea and ginger biscuits. The main entrance was in the courtyard. She eventually moved away, but the building remains the same, maybe still empty, the window frames unpainted. At the back of the yard is a workshop of some kind; a bathtub with plants outside the low building. The UGG sheepskin shop flanks the other side of the yard. At the street level are two empty shops. One still features faded posters and notes in the window: Sydney Folk Festival, Gulgong Folk Festival, ‘Rorts and Greed: Killing our Rivers’.

Back when I worked at Rosemary’s, the Hell’s Angels had leased or bought one of these shops for their clubhouse. They painted it red and fortified it with iron bars and security cameras. But this couldn’t stop a bomb from going off one night in June 2007, damaging the door and wall tiles. They moved out soon after that. 

On the other side of the road the dog-grooming shop ‘Wagging Tail’, which I could see from the room I worked in, now seems to have closed down. Crystal Street has a sign saying “Welcome to Cadigal-Wangal Country”. I don’t know if it was there before, or if I’m more aware of Aboriginal Country now.

A bit further along is the op shop which was closed when I passed by in October 2020. Now, three months later, dummies in colourful clothes are on display in the street outside. Further down is the Art Deco-style Petersham Town Hall. I learn from the internet that it has been a popular film location for movies and TV series such as ‘Strictly Ballroom’ and ‘A Place to Call Home’. 

Towards Stanmore Road opposite the Oxford Tavern is a Federation-style residential building with decorative green and cream timber features, and tiling on the entry paths. One section of it looks neglected. That part seems to be used as a boarding house. Another looks freshly renovated with shiny new street numbers.

Foo dogs and dandelions

Mary, Frances, Victoria Street, Lidcombe on Friday, 31 July 2020

Lidcombe has only very few shops but a lot of churches instead. I park in John Street near the Armenian Catholic Church, across is the Art Deco Lidcombe Hotel. I walk a few steps to Mary Street past a café and a Japanese restaurant and there the shopping and entertainment part of Lidcombe ends already. It’s only 5 minutes away from the train station. In Mary Street, I find the St Joachim’s Catholic Primary School and St Joseph’s Childcare Centre, defended by a hysterically barking dog. Through a gap between buildings, I glimpse the St Andrews Ukrainian Catholic Church in the next street.

Most of the shops are on the other side of the railway track, many of them Korean. A bit further down is Victoria Street East with a few factories in low buildings and a majestic domed church, the St Ephraim Syrian Orthodox Cathedral at the corner. A few houses further down I discover that a “true blue Aussie” lives there, displaying the Australian flag and a photo of Clint Eastwood with a rifle, saying “Get out of my driveway!!!”.

There are many streets with female names in Lidcombe all over the suburb. It’s too far to walk to everyone, so I check out most of them by driving through. All a bit of the same. On my way, I pass two more churches. Later I learn that there are even more, among them a Russian Orthodox Church. 

Frances is a long street and at the end towards Parramatta Road, it looks industrial with some small neglected houses. A large family with a cute toddler is gathered in an untidy garden, next door to a plastic manufacturer. The presumed father of the family says, “The good news is…” and then something about the electricity bill. The factory buildings on the other side seem to be abandoned. They don’t have any signs and weed grows high in front. A gate is open and I want to have a look, but then stop. There is someone. In movies, such places are used for bad things. 

Isabella among the smells of industry

Isabellla Street, Camperdown on Thursday, 28 May 2020

Isabella is a very short street which I first couldn’t find. When I finally drive into this narrow one-way lane, there is a big SUV in front of a new apartment building, blocking the way. A man with a big, black beard is talking to the driver. I immediately think that the car is collecting a COVID-19 test sample. At other times I would have thought they are just having a chat. The bearded man opens the garage door, but the car drives off. There is something strange about that car since I see it again a bit later, parking around the corner, then driving away, apparently having gone around the block as it comes back and enters Isabella Street from the wrong side.

This part of Camperdown has an industrial feel. Even though most of the old warehouses are now residential dwellings and the former factories are gone. At the Layton Street exit is a heavily fenced and barb-wired property that warns of high voltage. It has a rusty, crane-like contraption with a hook in the shape of an anchor. In Isabella Street are three small one-level terraces wedged between two dark brick warehouses.

I imagine the whole street would have been lined with terraces, like in working-class areas in England. These three are the leftovers. Maybe the warehouses came later. It’s dark in the street and the houses look utterly depressing. They were probably built to house the people working in the surrounding factories, as there was a foundry, a tannery, a coach works, biscuit factories, soap manufacturers, Fowler’s pottery and more.

We are closed for now

Rose Street and Tracey Lane, Chippendale on Tuesday, 28 April 2020

Rose Street runs from Cleveland Street, crosses Myrtle and later curves around to end in Buckland Street. There are some discarded household goods, a mattress and a chair. At first, the appearance of chairs in my photos was accidental. But now I am looking out for them. I read them as a metaphor for this state of ‘social distancing’ and isolation from each other. The chairs are empty because we don’t sit on them to be together with people. They are discarded because people have no guests and no parties. This chair is facing the backside of the mattress as if it is a film screen and has a beer bottle sitting on it.

It’s a grey day. The cream and white colours of walls and houses stand out nicely in this light. The grey colours, of which there are plenty, don’t fare so well. The part of Rose Street towards Cleveland Street is the location of The Duck Inn, a cozy and popular pub. The two blackboards on each side of a shuttered door say: “We are Closed for Now”. The other popular pub in the area, The Rose Hotel, is - despite its name - not in Rose but in Shepherd Street. Yellow autumn leaves are scattered on the pavement. Somewhere, red geraniums are still in full bloom. Sydney always has several things from the four seasons at once.

Tracey Lane is a short walk down from The Duck Inn. I had to find it with the navigator, there is no street name. It has an old abandoned factory and flats in other small industrial buildings. A ladder is propped up against a wall and I hear drilling noises and hammering from inside one building.  

I wait for you here

Alice Street and Alice Ave, Newtown on Friday, 24 April 2020

At the corner of Alice Street and Edgeware Road is “The Wolf and Honeybee” café. It still has the old writing in blue on white from its former life, ‘Milk Bar Fruit & Veg”. The colour at the last bit of the g has disappeared. The café is closed.

I feel I see more people in sports gear than ever before. Australia - since I know it - has always been remarkable for people wearing jogging pants, gym tights, tiny training shorts and singlets in urban streets. Now it seems to have become the general street gear.

A short walk from the street corner is Alice Avenue. There is a small truck with a big tin barrel, flat at the bottom, a door at the back, and a window at the front. A bit like a gypsy caravan. Both walls on each side of this little street have paintings, one is graffiti, the other a circus scene with skilful patches of graffiti in between. It’s unclear if they belong to the painting or have been inserted afterwards.

I vaguely remember from my early days in Sydney to have visited a factory or warehouse in Newtown, which was converted into artists’ studios. A friend had a studio there in the early 2000s. I have a dim memory that they were in Alice Street at the King Street end. I even think to recognise the spot. Only it is now a huge apartment block with the name ‘Industri’. That would make sense, meaning that they pulled the old premises down to build this one.

Now that I have become quite familiar with Sydney, the places visited in the first months or even years appear in my memory like dreamscapes without being able to locate them properly.

When I look for former factories in Alice Street on the internet, I find ‘The Automatic Totalisators Ltd.’ They produced ticket issuing machines, mainly for race courses. There is a group photo of the workers with the buildings behind from 1921. I am sure for a moment that I’ve found my factory, but then I see the address and an aerial map from 1949 of the complex. It was at the other end of the street and had gone a long time before I came to Sydney.

Alice Street and Alice Lane on Sunday, 26 April 2020

Two days later, I am back in Alice Street. My friend has told me in the meantime that her studio was somewhere else. But I am still obsessed with that factory. So I’ve continued to search and found a record with a photo of the PMU Food Products Ltd, established around 1934. (PMU stands for ‘Pick Me Up’). It looks familiar to me.

I also found a record of the Bradford Cotton Mills, applying to the Newtown Council for the construction of a factory in Alice Street in 1933 which was approved.

I wish I could ask the residents of the older houses in the neighbourhood what was there before the new apartments. But in these times of anxiety and distancing, it seems weird to stop strangers in the street and even more so to ring doorbells.

I move on to Alice Lane. Here a back gate is painted and decorated as if it is the stage of a circus with a red curtain and decorated pillars. Apparently belonging to the same property, a whacky house with an asymmetric design and bright primary colours is looking over the wall.

On another wall, I read 'Aqui Te Espero', ‘I wait for you here’. It makes me feel sad. Everything takes on another meaning during this Pandemic. I read later that it is an official mural by the street artist Nadia Hernandez. It hasn’t been created for this situation.

A bit further along, where Alice Lane turns right, a flat cardboard cat is propped up on a fence. Two Chinese workers are having a smoko break at the backside of a shop. It must be an 'essential' business, or they’re just cleaning up.

The lane continues, crossing another street. The chimneys at Sydney Park are visible in the distance. The quietness around me is not one of the 21st Century on a sunny Sunday in a busy neighbourhood. I feel to have stepped out of time, not quite into the past but somewhere ‘sideways’.

Mural by Hugues Sineux

Aqui Te Espero by Nadia Hernandez