Vanishing Sydney

Anzac Day. A public holiday throughout Australia, commemorating the landing of the 30,000 strong Australian & New Zealand Army Corps on Gallipoli on 25 April 1915, at the start of a failed invasion of the Turkish-held peninsular. The British campaign to capture the Dardanelles and march on Constantinople was abandoned nine months later and all troops evacuated. Collectively, the British and Ottoman Empires lost more than 110,000 men killed in battle on Gallipoli. Senseless loss at tremendous scale.

Memorial to Annandale’s Immortal Dead (1921). A simple pillar with the names of the 87 local men who were killed in battle, died of wounds, succumbed to disease or never made it on the ship home. Inscription reads: “Erected by the Citizens of Annandale to the Memory of the Men of this District who made the Supreme Sacrifice in the Great War 1914-1920.” (The name R.E.Watson is that of a 16-year-old boy soldier killed in action nine months before the war ended, after a year of fighting in France). Features unusual curved seating at the base of the pillar for quiet contemplation. An ersatz grave once existed behind the memorial below the words “To The Immortal Dead” for more personal mourning. Design competition won by R. Keith Harris and monument built by F. Gagliardi in finely grained trachyte stone quarried at Bowral, 100 km south of Sydney. Annandale.

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Bird of Paradise (Strelitzia reginae). Large Autumn flowering bush endemic to South Africa, but widely planted in the Inner West (on roughly the same latitude), mainly as a soil stabiliser. Distinctive flower just emerging from the spathe here. Hurlstone Park.

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Real narrow laneway. These lanes were built behind 19th century terrace houses to collect “night soil”, before the advent of widespread mains sewerage in the Inner West in the late 1920’s. Folks would put their shit cans out in the lane, to be collected by the “night soil cart” each evening. An endless cycle until the proliferation of the flush toilet in the 1930’s. The lanes remain. Newtown.

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Mystery laneway door. Marrickville.

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Galah, or Pink & Grey Cockatoo (Eolophus roseicapilla). Random laneway garage door. Newtown.

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Floating gin palace. There aren’t many places to park a boat in the Inner West. But there is room for an 850 foot BFS (Big Fucking Ship). The Pacific Explorer floated in under The Bridge this week, the first cruise liner to turn up in the Harbour City since another one - the infamous Ruby Princess - literally bought the Pandemic to town two years ago. Seen here from across the water at Pyrmont tied up at the White Bay terminal in Balmain. In port for a six week refit before taking on paying passengers. You’d have to be game for it. Pyrmont.

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Heavily modified late Victorian era terrace houses dated 1888. The “Centenary Year” was peak boom times in Sydney with rampant real estate speculation, but it all went to shit in the Panic of 1890, which led to an almost decade long economic depression. Newtown.

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Oops. Some below average hammer work sees the sign fall down on what the State Government’s urban planners think we need. Leichhardt.

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Building site from hell. Jammed up hard against a 1902 Sydney Sandstone church, now used as a church hall for the newer church next door. Apartments suddenly appear from nothing to lock-up stage in six months flat. Canterbury.

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A ‘modest’ late Victorian era mansion c.1884. There aren’t many of these left in the Inner West that have been restored to original condition; a lot of them vanished during sub-divisions of large blocks for apartment building booms in the 1930’s, 50’s and 70’s, before Heritage listings became a thing. Lewisham.

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A pair of remnant abandoned late 19th century shops and shop-tops, although there’s probably folks squatting upstairs. Not long for the wrecking ball. Dulwich Hill.

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Some new paintwork on the Transplant Institute and Institute of Academic Surgery, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. Camperdown.

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Dai Hua (b.1976, Beijing), Wokaol, 2007. Inkjet print. (Three small details from a work about 5ft x 3ft). Currently on display at the White Rabbit Gallery of Contemporary Chinese Art in the exhibition Big in China. Free admission. Closes 22 May 22. Chippendale.

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A couple of Free Little Libraries hanging out on dude’s front fences. Marrickville and Hurlstone Park.

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Former Methodist church (1891). Extraordinary facade on an old church built of Sydney Sandstone salvaged from an inner city warehouse destroyed by fire the previous year, and transported to the site. The sandstone gargoyles, sculpted by stone mason Thomas Wran, are the only ones in all of Sydney - and probably Australia - depicting native plants and animals. Now a publicly owned local visual and performing arts workshop. Annandale.

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Vanishing Sydney

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