Ivy

Ivy Street and Lane, Darlington on Sunday, 8 November 2020

First I walk along Ivy Street which has mainly Victorian terraces and big, old eucalyptus trees.

This suburb still seems to have the Council waste collection day for household items which the neighbouring Redfern has not to my great regret. I am tempted to take a discarded little footstool with me. I am also tempted to bring some of my own unwanted household goods here. But I resist both temptations.

Across Abercrombie Street, Ivy Street is dominated by the large warehouse which used to have offices and now flats. I had an encounter with this part of Ivy Street, when I did my ‘Night Cruise’ project, photographing the building through raindrops on the windshield of my car.

Ivy Lane is divided by Lawson and Abercrombie Street, merging here with the Glengarry Castle Hotel at the corner. People walk slowly, getting coffee from the shops, stopping for a chat. The area feels like a secluded neighbourhood this Sunday afternoon. Not like the busy thoroughfare it is during the week between Redfern Station and the nearby university.

Jane and Ann have seen a lot

Jane and Ann Street, Balmain on Monday, 24 August 2020

These streets are in an old part of Balmain with many sandstone houses and the traces of previous times tangible. It feels good to be back in a street with history after some weeks in suburbia.

In Jane Street is the tall church you can see from the Pyrmont waterfront where I often go for walks. The street is on a hill and the church appears even taller for that, a true landmark of Balmain. The church’s name is St Augustine and the foundation of the first smaller sandstone church was laid in 1848. This building is still standing and nestling next to the tall brick church which was built in 1907 to accommodate a growing population. I am reading now that the church has a most beautiful stained glass rose window which catches the morning light. I should go back there to see it. There is a Catholic Primary School named after Fr John Therry. He was appointed Parish Priest for Balmain in 1856, apparently after difficult struggles with Governor Macquarie who was supporting the Anglican church. I am reading in the history pages of the St Augustine website that Fr Therry was constantly agitating for the rights of Catholics and Aboriginal people so that he was even fired as a Catholic Chaplain at one stage, later to be re-instituted. In the early days of the Colony, Catholics were viewed with suspicion and Masses were even banned. The 1877 convent of the Immaculate Conception is also in Jane Street.

At the corner to Darling Street is the London Hotel, one of the oldest pubs in Sydney, operating non-stop since 1870. I am glad to see that it has survived the Covid19 lockdown and restrictions with a safety plan in place. The building itself is even older, it was built as a corner shop in 1857. I remember the London Hotel to be a very touristy pub, but it probably always had its congregation of locals as regular patrons. It looks as if they have regained their territory. People know each other.

At the corner of Ann Street is a café, preparing to close. A last customer and his dog are sitting at an outside table in the probably also last ray of sunshine in this corner.

The street slopes down to a park at White Bay and the empty docks. You can see some of Pyrmont and the Anzac bridge through trees. There are modest timber cottages, sandstone houses, terraces, and a sixties block of flats. I photograph bits and pieces of these places when suddenly a shabbily dressed woman with her dog comes up behind me and asks accusingly what I am photographing. I say, the lovely houses around here. “You are not allowed to do that. I watched you taking photographs of my place. They should not be on your phone.” “Ok”, I say, “which house was it? I’ll delete it.” She’s taken aback and doesn’t want to do it. Momentarily I have forgotten that nobody wants to be next to strangers in these Corona times and flick through their photos, heads bent over the phone. She could have told me which one it was, but that may be too much information if you are already suspicious. 

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.