The weird and the beautiful

Margaret Street, North Sydney on Monday, 28 September 2020

This street looks like a walkway in a park, going uphill between trees and bushes. First, there are some sandstone houses, a small art deco block of flats and a car mechanic workshop hidden away in a recess. Then steps are going up high to the next level. Halfway is a small lawn with a bench under trees and on the other side a sprawling building with walls and towers like a fortress. Some renovation work is in progress. They are putting in shiny corrugated aluminium roofs that clash with the medieval theme. A man working on the site asks me if I got lost. In turn, I ask him if he is the owner of this building, seeing that he looks a bit older than the average construction worker.

“No, I wished”, he answers. “You wished? It’s rather weird.” “Yeah, it is a bit. It has been here for 40 years.”

Welcome to Redfern

Caroline Street and Lane, Redfern on Sunday, 26 April 2020

Reko Rennie Community Project

This is one of the streets on ‘The Block’, the colloquial name of the precinct near Redfern Station owned by the Aboriginal Housing Company. The area was the first urban land rights claim in Australia, so I learned from the internet. It was set up by Aboriginal activists in 1972 and backed by the Whitlam Government. Funding for the project dried out, and the area fell into disrepair. When I moved to Redfern in 2001, it was a no-go zone. Even the rest of Redfern was like that in the eyes of people who didn’t live here. In those days, you could go or drive to the corner of Lawson and Eveleigh and find someone standing at the wall who would sell you small quantities of weed. I called it ‘supporting the local community’. One night I went to the street after dark to take photos by letting the camera hang around my neck and take shots blindly. It was in October 2003. Most of them didn’t work out, but one just emerged recently from my pile of old photos.

In February 2004 the so-called Redfern riots took place, sparked by the death of TJ Hickey. I arrived towards the end of it. Only a handful of people were left near a smouldering fire, encircled by police. Residents in Lawson Street sat peacefully on their front porches with glasses of wine and watched.

Caroline Street, Redfern in 2003

Redfern “Riot”, February 2004

At the end of Caroline Street towards Eveleigh Street was a large expanse of land, covered with grass. This was left over from demolished houses long before I knew ‘The Block’. At the end was the painting of the Aboriginal flag on the back wall of Tony Mundine’s boxing studio. Seeing it from the bridge at Redfern Station the building looked tiny against the high-rises of the CBD looming over it, the painting itself like a symbol of survival.

In May 2006, this precinct emerged from its dark ages by throwing a 'Block Party' on the grassland. They had a truck serving as a stage in front of the flag painting. Various music groups played while the audience sat leisurely in the grass.

In 2014 and 2015, the 'Tent Embassy' set up camp on that land to protest against the Aboriginal Housing Company’s development plan. They claimed it did not include enough affordable housing for Aboriginal families. After they were evicted, a fence was put around the field to prevent further occupation, so it could not even be used for leisure and play. This is all gone now, as the construction project named 'Pemulwuy' has finally gone ahead. It promises to provide housing for 600 students and 62 affordable dwellings for Aboriginal families, a gym, a childcare centre, a gallery and shops. The unfinished building now towers over the small terraces with their cute balconies on Caroline Street.

Another feature is the ‘Welcome to Redfern’ mural, painted onto the remains of a Victorian terrace. It was part of the City of Sydney's 'Eora Journey' project. Executed by the Aboriginal artist Reko Rennie together with young people from the area and curated by Hetti Perkins. Nearby is the Redfern Community Centre where they occasionally held the ‘Blak Market’.

Back to the day of my visit: It’s cloudy but warm. People sit on the steps at their open front doors or somewhere near the entrance inside. It’s quiet, nobody is working on the construction site because it’s Sunday. Otherwise, construction is one of the few businesses still happening these days.

Block Party, May 2006

Caroline Lane is a very narrow alley between Caroline and Lawson Street. I am surprised it even has a name. Two boys about 10 years old are constructing ramps from discarded boards and planks and trying their skateboards on them. The ramps are not high enough and there is no space to get a movement going. As I walk past they explain, “We are building a skateboard ramp.” I say, “I can see that and does it work?” “We are trying to make it work”. The end of the lane is blocked by a part of the construction site, so I have to turn back. The boys have given up and are sitting opposite each other. One has red hair, the other a green top. I think the one with the red hair should have to green top.  

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