No. 275 - Sedition

What could possibly be seditious about a men's hairdresser? Yet that is the name emblazoned on the red sign.

Behind bars

I was taken aback this week by one of the responses to the refugee debate. When invited to choose between waiting in a refugee camp for however long it takes, or getting their family out by boat, of the 4,800 respondents, 82% opted for the latter.

Touchy-feely

100 Market Street is part of the renovated Pitt Street Mall being built by Frank Lowy's Westfield Group.


This feature wall is made from concrete.
Go on.
Touch it!

Four corners in the East

These corners are all in the first valley or upon the first ridge east of Sydney town and were established between 1820 and 1850. Terrace houses entered a restoration phase in the 1960s and much of the area is under a preservation order.

Five Ways, Paddington

Stanley Street, East Sydney

Burton Street, East Sydney

Walter Street, Moore Park

A member of the Everyday Life community

Unvaulted - a panoramic skyline

In 1873 an unnamed photographer made the perilous ascent to the top of the clock tower on Sydney Town Hall. The clock face was still to be put in place, and he and two others climbed up steps and a series of ladders until they were 190 feet above George Street. The objective was to take a photograph between each of the columns of the finial - ten in all.


In 2007, photographer Peter Murphy made the same climb, and duplicated the original ten images. In his studio, he digitally stitched together the original ten images to form a panorama. He did the same with his recent ten images. Then he lined them up to enable those interested to make a direction comparison of their city 134 years apart.


Each of these stitched images is on display in the renovated Lower Ground Floor of the Town Hall until next Monday.

Murphy has also animated the original set of images and they are displayed on the wall in an never-ending loop, as well as on a computer where the viewer can forward and backward 'til their heart's content.

I have seen the Panorama Mesdag in The Hague. Our panorama falls a bit short. Mesdag was set apart in its own room and was 360 degrees with sound effects. However, I still found this panorama engrossing as it is of a city that I know intimately.

I could only find nine of the ten originals on the City of Sydney data-base.

Top Left - looking north down George St with the old markets in the foreground not the QVB Top Centre - looking across North Hyde Park to the spire of St James Top Right - looking east along Park Street through the centre of Hyde Park Middle Left - looking across South Hyde Park Middle Centre - looking south down George St with St Andrews in the fore-ground Middle Right - looking across St Andrews to Broadway and a very distant Sydney University Bottom Left - looking to the head of Darling Harbour Bottom Centre - looking across the centre of Darling Harbour with Pyrmont Bridge on the RHS Bottom Right - looking across the beginning of the Parramatta River with Millers Point on the RHS

The missing image is the tenth one which is looking north down York Street.

Art-deco (2) - The Grace Hotel

Situated on the corner of York, King and Clarence Streets this was a "folly" by the Brothers Grace who gambled that the advent of the Sydney Harbour bridge would see a slight shift in the location of retail trading in the city. There had been much horse-trading in the corridors of power re the location of City Circle underground train stations with the Mark Foy family supporting the Museum location and the Lloyd Jones family supporting the St James location. Grace Brothers opened their new York Street store in July 1930. The entire ground floor was given over to retail.


Based on the design features of the Chicago Tribune building, the Grace Building was one of the first in Sydney to be clad in glazed terra cotta and marked the high point of the Commercial Gothic style, the immediate precursor of art-deco. Within the Gothic style, there are extensive art-deco elements.

The building has a distinct vertical emphasis with a Gothic corner tower, with flying buttresses, pointed windows and quatrefoils, with details picked out in green. It was designed by the architectural firm of Morrow & Gordon and constructed by Kell & Rigby. The building was extensively refurbished in 1995 and opened as The Grace Hotel in 1997. Although of immense beauty, the exterior of the building (up high) shows much chipping and damage to the tiling.

Sunday in the City - The glory that is art-deco (1)

Art-deco derived its name from the Exposition des Arts Deorators et Industrials Modernes, held in Paris in 1925. The style symbolised a new mechanical streamlined age, utilizing new materials such as steel and plastic. Art-deco motifs were particularly favoured for the interiors and exteriors of distinctly Twentieth Century buildings such as the cinema, the skyscraper and the pub.

Sydney has a large collection of Art-deco inspired buildings from the late 20s to the early 50s. With a guide from the 20th Century Society of NSW, I became acquainted with some.


This is the fenestration of the City Mutual Insurance Building on the corner of Hunter and Philip Street. Designed by Emil Sodersten it was completed in the second half of the '30s. It is clad in Hawkesbury sandstone above a polished granite base. It has unusual zig-zag windows which are hinged around a tall central tower and designed to allow as much light as possible into the building and reduce the heat load.

The foyer is now the home of Neil Perry's Rockpool.

A member of the Sunday in my City community.

Mr Mitchell's monument

Main: Mitchell Reading Room; Left: Exhibition in the walkway between the two buildings; Right: Exhibition in the grand foyer

If you are in Sydney, GO SEE THIS EXHIBITION!!

In 1907 David Mitchell died and bequeathed his book collection to the state if they would house it well. Joseph Banks' journal was part of his collection. Took 'em three years, but they built a grand book house. And now there is the adjoining State Reference Library which is 13 floors below ground as well as the delightfully bright bit above ground.

Main: Marble version of Tasman's map in main foyer; Left: Joseph Banks' journal, 1770; Right: Letter from Mary Reiby, 1792

Paul Brunton, the Curator must have gone bonkers trying to choose just 100 items from their vaults for this exhibition. And great stuff it is too, ranging from the 1600s to last year. And they have some excellent audio/visual offerings. There is one screen that displays the Mary Reiby letter a word at a time, as though she is penning it in front of you. She had just arrived in Sydney, convicted of stealing a horse. She was 15 and wrote this letter back to her aunt. By the time she was 32 she was a widow with 7 children. She died in 1855, a VERY prosperous businesswoman.

Main: Vietnam Moritorium poster, 1970; Left: upstairs corridor with panoramic 1907 photographs of Sydney by Melvin Vaniman; Right: Henry Lawson's journal

This exhibition was a bit confoosing for moi, 'cause a curator showed me where to go to get good photographs, yet a security guy rapped me over the knuckles and told me to put it away. It's not as though I was using flash or anything, just that my camera is a bit on the obvious side.

So much to read and think about. I shall have to go back lots of times. I can only do about a dozen at a time. Great fun for this little history-holic. Thank you, Mr Mitchell.

Gallery space upstairs for "One Hundred" which is 100 items from their vaults in an exhibition that is open for 100 days

Trim, his master's faithful servant

Trim travelled with Matthew Flinders as he circumnavigated and mapped the coastline of Australia between 1801 and 1803 in HMS Investigator . When Flinders was imprisoned by the French in Mauritius during his return voyage to England, Trim shared his captivity.

Trim was black, with white paws, chin and chest. He was named after the butler in Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy, because Flinders considered him to be a faithful and affectionate friend whom he described as 'one of the finest animals I ever saw … a clear jet black, with the exception of his four feet, which seemed to have been dipped in snow and his under lip, which rivaled them in whiteness. He had also a white star on his breast.' The popularity of the statue has led to the library's cafe also being named after the cat.


There are a number of explorers important to the City of Sydney and the state of New South Wales, for example Captain Arthur Philip, Watkin Tench, Charles Sturt, John Oxley, Hamilton Hume, Blaxland&Wentworth&Lawson, George Evans, and Thomas Mitchell. I will not be able to locate statues of them all, but will keep my eyes peeled.

Today is the 100th anniversary of the Mitchell Wing of the State Library of NSW, named after its generous benefactor, David Scott Mitchell. I will see what I am able to report back tomorrow of the festivities. It seems to be my second home at the moment.