Theme Day - Smell

The past has a musty, stuffy smell of windows not opened enough, of sunlight not streaming enough, and fresh air not wafting enough.

The main entrance, on Bridge Street, of The Industrial Relations Commission of NSW, in part of the Chief Secretary's Building, constructed between 1873 and 1893..

This post is my contribution to the City Daily Photo Monthly Theme Day. To see the contribution of other members of CDP please visit the portal.

Heading out ...

Yes, Susan, Central Station (aka Sydney Terminal) is still operating as a railway station. Indeed, I think I would put it on my list of icons (just had to fix the spelling there, as my diplopia caused me to type "lust"), not just for my city of Sydney, but also for my state of New South Wales. In the affection of the hoi poloi, I suspect it would rank second after the "coat-hanger". We do, though, have a penchant for demolishing fine old buildings such as this, eg the original Stock Exchange in Bridge Street, and of showing disrespect and changing them into hotels and eateries for the well-off folk, eg the GPO (General Post Office) in Martin Place. Every two weeks, I catch a train from Central up to Gosford, about 60kms, or 90 minutes. I visit my brother in an aged-care facility. This train shown here, was the 8:15am Intercity, yesterday, Sunday. I can also take the 7:45 am City-Rail train on a Saturday, depending of how my fortnight is structured. I love to travel by train. It is soothing, and I can people-watch 'til my heart's content.

Glorious sandstone

ABOVE: Walking down the other side of Loftus Street. making this facade part of the Lands Building. Keeping in mind that these images were taken on 2nd January, and the teeming hordes were not in the city yet after their night of festivities. This is the block around the Department of Education building. Remember, this building is flanked by Bridge Street, Loftus Street, Bent Street, and Young Street.

What has gotten into me? Glorious sandstone, and I show the images in B&W. Grilled windows in Loftus Street. Grilled windows in Youmg Street. Wrought iron door grill in Bent Street. BELOW:This young chap was picking his way down Loftus Street to Circular Quay.

Cazneaux's cabbies

Bridge Street, in the centre of Sydney's CBD, has always been an important street. The original "bridge" was across the Tank Stream, but neither the bridge (its heirs and successors!) or, indeed, the stream, is still in existence. Once again, the black'n'white image was made by Harold Cazneaux in 1904, and shows Sydney's horse cabs. Phillip Geeves tells me that the peak year for Sydney's hansom cabs had been in 1892, when there had been 1,299 cabs clip-clopping around the city. The decline of Sydney's cab population over the 1890s was, primarily, driven by three causes: the depression of the 1890s the advent og the cable tram over the Edgecliff routs which had been the most lucrative route for the cabbies, and the increase in popularity of the bicycle. The cabbies are sitting on the low stone wall having a chin-wag, and puffing on their pipes. That low stone wall on which they are perched - and its high gate pillar a little way down - are still there today, around Macquarie Place. Opposite the horses - note the nose bag! - is the Lands Department building. To its right is The Royal Exchange Building, and the next building (with the small dome) is the Exchange Hotel.

I tried to replicate from memory. I enjoy the challenge, but agree it would be better to take the book with me! See the stone wall? Not, across the road the old Royal Exchange has been replaced with a modern monstrosity. Now let's look the OTHER way along Bridge Street. Let's look east, rather than west. In the modern view, after the Lands Dept Building is the Education Department, and on the corner of Bridge and Macquarie Streets is the magnificent Chief Secretary's Building.

Calling a spade a digging implement

This is an art installation - or a sculpture - in the forecourt of the Museum of Sydney in Bridge Street in the city, which is on the site of the original government house in the 1790s. Created by Peter Collins in 2010, it is called 'Tides Turn'. Made of eucalypt sticks and steel mesh, the artist declares it to be 'a wave that escaped the ocean, dressed up in sticks and went to shore looking for blood'. One of the exhibits in the Musuem at the moment is on the history of surfing in Australia.


To my mind, the resemblance to an indigenous gunyah, or humpy, is overwhelming. These were the shelters that the original inhabitants of this land used for shelter at the time of European settlement. Also, the way the sticks have been woven together resemble the creation of the panels for brushwood fencing, one of the ways that people nowadays use to section off their particular parcel of land. I find this sculpture discombobulating. There is an undercurrent that is concerning. a wolf in sheep's clothing.

Weekend Reflection - On sacrifice

Macquarie Place, along the Bridge Street boundary reflecting The Lands Department building

Deep in the shade of a Moreton Bay Fig in one of Sydney’s ‘precious places’, resides this unassuming fountain completed in 1960. It is a memorial to John Christie Wright a Lieutenant in the 20th Battalion, AIF, killed in Bullecourt, France, 3rd May, 1917. Born in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, he emigrated to Australia in 1912, and was 28 years old when he died.

‘He was a man who could ill be spared, but, having heard the cry and call of duty, he went forth to fight for the liberty of others.’

John Christie Wright was a sculptor and a painter.

Macquarie Place is ‘precious’ because it is the cradle of our nation, just as tomorrow is ‘precious’ because it is the forge of our nation, ANZAC Day. This is a precious day, not just because of one battle. It is precious because men and women, Australians all, went far away from home to stand up for something bigger than any individual, bigger than any nation. Concepts that straddle nations: comradeship and freedom.

A member of the Weekend Reflection community.

How exact do you need to be?

Sydney was established in January 1788 as a convict settlement by the United Kingdom. Arthur Phillip sailed his eleven ships and his 1,500 people into the harbour and claimed it for King George III. As he read his proclamation, the flag of the United Kingdom was raised.

But where, just where, did he raise that flag? I was told, via a throw-a-way line, ‘Oh, down in Loftus Street somewhere.’ Pardon? A significant event like this is ‘down Loftus street somewhere.’

BUT, IT'S TRUE!

There’s a Union Flag stuck on a flag-pole down Loftus Street somewhere.


And it didn’t manage to be stuck on that pole until 26th January 1967, after a Committee of Enquiry determined a definitive location. The two paintings above were executed 149 years apart, the one on the left being painted by William Bradley in 1788 and the one on the right, by Algernon Talmage in 1937. This and official correspondence was their evidence.

The final image is as much as I am prepared to show you of the flag and its location. I am sure that the Committee got the location right as much as absolutely possible - but it’s on a footpath outside the Customs House bar, and opposite the Paragon Pub.

On the other side of Loftus street there is a small park, the Jesse Street Park, and on the corner of Loftus and Bridge Street is Macquarie Place, the colony’s first town square. Either would have been preferable.

So, how exact do you need to be?

Tank Stream (2) - Into the head of the Cove

Near the intersection of Bridge & Pitt Streets

During the 1860s the Tank Stream, on which Sydney was founded, disappeared beneath the streets and buildings of the burgeoning city. Today, its course is traced by sculptures on the footpaths, named laneways and an annual day of exploration for those lucky enough to have their name drawn out of the heavily subscribed ballot.

This diagram stands adjacent to the access point for the annual explorations at the base of Australia Square

Where Bridge Street stands today was the delta of the Tank Stream as it widened into Sydney Cove. Bridge Street was crossed by a makeshift log bridge which tumbled down quickly being replaced by a stone version in 1804. The stream was so polluted by sewage and dead animals by the 1820s that fresh water had to be sourced from elsewhere. Over the first century of settlement the muddy delta flats area was reclaimed and built upon and today houses much of the financial heart of the city.

Frederick Garling's 1842 watercolour in the Mitchell Library

In the above painting, the large house on the right occupied pride of place in Macquarie Place, with the fence indicating Pitt Way which today is Pitt Street. The stone bridge is hard to make out, but the fouling of the stream is quite obvious.

Tomorrow, I will take you down into the bowels of the GPO in Martin Place to see some of the stone culvert into which the Tank Stream was encased and through which it still trickles its way from the original swamp where the Pitt Street mall now stands, down into Sydney Cove at Circular Quay West.

Looking down Bridge Street to the east. The Tank Stream runs beneath the very low point (from right to left) just this side of Pitt Street at the lights, and this side of Macquarie Place