Transit of the sun

Up in the mornin', Out on the job, I work like the devil for my pay. I know that lucky old sun, has nothin' to do, But roll around heaven all day.

Old tramways layby on the intersection of Glenmore Road, Brown Street, and MacDonald Street in Paddington.

A pub called Tea

Did you know that the suburb of Bondi used to be called Tea Gardens, after a pub of the same name which was erected in 1854 close to the intersection of Cowper Street (later renamed Bronte Road) and Oxford Street? This remained the case until the early 1880s when so many tram lines intersected the area that it was called 'the junction' and Bondi was tagged on because it meant water breaking on rocks and had been used to name the area immediately in front of the nearby beach.

Here are two views of that intersection: Bronte Road and Oxford Street. The top one taken in about 1902 when the tram line was electrified. The next one taken yesterday. What a difference 110 years makes! Duh!!

In the 1902 image The Tea Gardens Hotel is on the right in the background, the tall corner building. Two coupled E class tram cars have just turned from Oxford Street into Bronte Street. They will go past the Tea Gardens Hotel and continue on to Waverley. Coming through that same intersection, but remaining on Oxford Street is a dairy cart. Keep this dairy cart in mind for tomorrow.

So what has changed - other than everything! For starters, Oxford Street is a mall (in which I stood in the sleet to take the photograph). Down the centre of the mall are fake tram tracks. It is hard to recognise the old pub although the shape bears a resemblance being on the corner like that. The awning that trumpets 'Soul Pattison & Co' and 'Hardie & Gorman' is all gone gone gone. Soul Pattison is a pharmacy which is still in operation but not just there. Hardie & Gorman were auctioneers who no longer trade. However, they were instrumental in the sale of estates which converted Bondi into a residential suburb.

Once again, some of the iconic pub images from the '30s adorn the walls of the Tea Gardens Hotel, indicating that Bondi was a working man's suburb. Note the rugby league game is between the Eastern Suburbs Tricolours and the Newtown Blue-bags. Nowadays, the pub is the haunt of a myriad of backpackers from NZ, the UK and Ireland.

Taronga before the chair-lift

The good ole days weren't really, you know. I don't reckon.

Taronga Zoo has been clinging to a harbour cliffside since 1916, and from then until the very late '50s it was serviced by trams, either that or shanks's pony. Getting over there was the easy part: you went by ferry to bottom gate, or by car to top gate. If you went down, you had to clamber back up to your car. If you came by ferry it was the hard yards as you viewed the animals.


So, Taronga Zoo was serviced by a tram route that took visitors from the Athol Wharf up to the top gate, facilitating an easy ramble one-way only. As I meandered down the other day, I saw remnants of the tramway down Athol Wharf Road. See the image of the black bike? Look at the upper right quadrant and you will see a hook in the rockface for keeping the electric cabelling in place as the trams rattled along. I can find these everywhere now!


But Athol Wharf Road comes off Bradleys Head Road at top gate, and is a very steep incline as some of these images attest. More so than some of the trams could cope with. Three times they careered on down the road, past the wharf and into the harbour, having to be ignominously dredged out by crane. This happened in 1942, 1952 and 1958. This image shows the 1958 plunge.


The trams finished in the late '50s and buses took over the same route. They are still there, the buses. Plying their way from bottom gate to top gate, and thence to Mosman or to Balmoral Beach. I am unable to date the commencement of the chairlift, but here it is in all its glory.

The devil is in the detail

Here I go, leading you off down the garden path to 'geekdom' again. I have excelled myself this time ... hee hee hee!

You're dying to know what that daft little metal thingamejig is, aren't you? I can just sense the excitement bubbling to the surface ...

Once long ago, when politicians were even more daft than they are now, the city of Sydney did away with trams. After a century, and with one of the most extensive tramway systems in the world ... poof ... overnight ...

But, if you look really, really hard, you can find little bits they forgot.


The old photograph was taken in 1960 and shows a tram going down the hill from Kings Cross and just before Rushcutters Bay park. See all those cables that supply the electricity to power the trams? Well those cables had to be anchored somewhere.

The modern photograph shows an early Bank of New South Wales building in Castlereagh Street. Look carefully on the left-hand-side (LHS) just above the anchor point for the awning.


This old photograph is of College Street, with St Mary's Cathedral on the RHS and the Department of Births, Deaths & Marriages straight ahead. Judging from the style of GM-Holdens on the road, I would date this pre-1958. See all the overhead wires? They have to be anchored somewhere. I wonder if any anchor points are still lodged in the sandstone of St Mary's?

The photograph on the RHS is of the David Jones Market St store (the snooty department store mentioned over the weekend). This is the corner of Market St and Castlereagh St. See the rounded art-deco wrap-round window. Look just to the left of it. Bingo, an anchor point.


The old photograph was taken somewhere in Balmain and that model Holden came out in 1959. See all the overhead wires? If the photo was good enough, we could enlarge it and tell the difference between the anchor points for the tram cables and the anchor points for the awnings. Bet there are many still there.

The new photograph is along Oxford Street, Paddington. Victoria Barracks was at my back. See the old Greenwood Tree pub. It is now apartments for DINKS. Have a look above each anchor for the awning, and you will find an anchor for a tram cable. They can also be see on the next building if you enlarge the image.


So, figured out where the top photograph was taken yet? Yep, the main entrance to the Queen Victoria Building along George Street, just where the main inward bus interchange is. Criminal isn't it? Drilling into that lovely sandstone to support cables. But a city has to adapt to growth.

Shooting Through : A fond remembrance

Pitt Street (Christmas 1935) taken from 'Shooting Through' published by the Historic Houses Trust of NSW (2009) pp 76-77

Come for a meander with me down memory lane, as we remember that day fifty years ago today, when the last tram of the massive Sydney tramways system trundled from Hunter Street out to La Perouse. Clocks can not be turned back, society moves on. Arguments for or against are futile.

Raise your glass: 'Sydney trams'.

2) Cable trams in King Street, 1890s 3) A queue of trams waiting for punters to exit from Randwick Racecourse, 1922 4) Official tram initiating the crossing of the bridge, 1932 5) Trams servicing Circular Quay (looking east), 1930s 6) Major tramways intersection at Railway Square, 1910s 7) Tram cresting the rise along Glebe Point Road, late 1950s 8) Along Eddy Avenue, in front of Central Station, late 1950s 9) Queens Square, Macquarie Street, 1960 10) Looking south along Elizabeth Street, 25 February 1961

For the last 18 months or so, I have participated in an email ring that has shared images of Sydney trams. I have hundreds of the blighters. There are two categories of image that bring me pain: the burning of the carriages, which occured within weeks of the final journey; and, the graffiti covered carriages out at Rozelle.

Laying down childhood memories

An hour from home, on the fringe of the second oldest national park in the world, a tight-knit band of weekend warriors, expend lick, spittle and elbow grease to make the past come to life.

As I sat in the rear of the gleaming ‘1979’ the squeals from the youngsters and the beams on the faces of the oldies was the proof of the pudding. The volunteers looked the part and their knowledge of trams was voluminous. Col was Head Conductor for the day, and no question was too dumb, no request too wacky.


Sydney’s tramway system commenced in 1861 but only caught the public imagination after the 1879 International Exhibition. By 1922 the tramway system covered 290kms and by 1945 was carrying 400 million passengers per year.

However, with the spread of the city and a dramatic increase in car ownership, the car lobby won the ear of the government and the last tram trundled into the Dowling Street depot in February 1961.


A member of the Mellow Yellow Monday community.

Monochrome Weekend - Ultimo tram sheds

Now used as storage sheds by the PowerHouse Museum

A member of the Monochrome Weekend community.

Then & Now - Broadway

Looking east along Broadway toward Railway Square, January 2010

Some of the modern range of billboards have humour but little wit. The yellow and red billboard on the right screams "Read me aloud".

Looking east along Broadway in 1910. Note the horse and cart and the sulky.

The main street of Sydney, George Street, was formerly known as High Street but renamed by Governor Macquarie in 1810. It is 3.5 kms in length, snaking from The Rocks way up to Central Station where it executes a 90 degree turn before heading west.

At Railway Square, the dramatic west turn, a turnpike was installed in 1811 (see extracting tolls for travelling isn't just the quirk of modern NSW politicians!) that levied travellers to raise funds to maintain the hazardous road to Parramatta.

Left: The marker authorised by Governor Bourke to indicate the western extremity of the city in 1837 which now stands on the corner of Glebe Point Road Right: the marker commemorating the widening of Parramatta Road in 1911 which stands beside the Footbridge to Sydney University

In 1815, after further major overhauls, the road was widened with the turnpike eventually moved to Grose Farm in 1836 (the site for the location of Sydney University in 1850). The western boundary of the city was declared at the corner of Glebe Point Road and Parramatta Road during the governorship of Richard Bourke (1831 – 1837).

A zoom down Broadway as it is today

Sometime between 1906 (when Central Railway station was built in its current form) and 1911 (after the 1908-09 Royal Commission on the Improvement of Sydney) many streets in Sydney were widened and entire strips of houses flattened in the process.

The short strip of roadway between Railway Square and City Road was flattened and widened being renamed “The Broadway” in 1911 and thereafter referred to as Broadway. It is 1km in length. At the same time, Parramatta Road was yet again widened. All turnpikes in this part of the city were long gone.

I am sampling the joys of Melbourne - including a day at the tennis. I will be back at my desk on Thursday 28th January.

Then & Now - Trams in Darlinghurst

A tram heading into the city from Bondi, turning from Burton Street into Bourke Street with the Caritas Mental Hospital behind.

Dating this photograph simply involved tracing when “Diamond Horseshoes” was showing at the old Tivoli Theatre in George St, City. “Diamond Horseshoes” played at the Tiv throughout 1959. It was preceded in December 1958 by a season from Winifred Atwell, and followed, in October 1959, by the “Pleasures of Paris”. I can call it the “Tiv” because I have been regaled since childhood of tales from my father’s mad dashes down there each time a new show headlined in the ‘30s, especially if it was Roy Rene and his alter ego Mo McCackie.

Ah, 1959, those were the days. I was 11 years of age, living in the country, learning how to shear sheep rather than chat up boyz. Being an egg-head (aka a geek), I knew that “Martello Towers” won the Australian Derby in Easter of that year at Royal Randwick; I knew that the mighty red’n’whites, St George, won their 6th straight Rugby League premiership by trouncing Manly by 20-0 in the Grand Final in September. Even worse, I knew that Bob Heffron succeeded J.J. Cahill as the Premier of NSW and that Harry Jensen was the Lord Mayor of Sydney. Facts matter to an eleven year old!

Note how the wall that held the Tivoli advert is now converted to apartments with windows

This tram route stopped in 1960. The 389 bus route still follows much of the old tram route from Elizabeth Street to the North Bondi terminus. However, there is still evidence of trams along the way: exposed track, sidings cut back to allow trams a more gradual climb up a hill, the Cutler Footway behind St Vincent’s Hospital, a tram siding near Gurner Street , and many rounded corners to enable trams easier passage round corners.

What a difference 50 years makes!

NB: I know the old photo is time-stamped 4:57pm. But the shadows put the lie to this. That tram is heading west into the city, yet the shadows are being cast by a rising sun.

A 389 bus turning from Bourke St into Burton St, Darlinghurst with the Caritas Mental Hospital diagonally ahead

Part of the Sundays in my City community.

Those who cannot remember the past

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" aphorised George Santayana.


The old Rozelle Tram Sheds are alongside the Johnson Creek canal tucked in behind Harold Park Paceway. They have been vandalised in an overwhelmingly tragic and demeaning manner. Trams are a sorely missed iconic reminder of our city's past: a reminder of the foolish deeds of politicians and the futile fad-following of the hoi polloi.

Many thanks to Peter Liebeskind for the above two images. He has been most generous with access to his Flickr site

During the 1950s the motor car ruled the roost, and the NRMA pressured the lilly-livered pollies - the likes of Cahill, Heffron, Renshaw and Askin - into removing this cheap and efficient means of mass people movement from our streets, to make way for the ascendency of cars and their concrete flyovers. The tramway was in place from 1861 until its winding down in the 1950s and closure in 1961. It had a maximum street mileage of 291 km in 1923 and at one time could boast in excess of 1,500 trams!


The Rozelle Tram Sheds opened in 1904 and closed in 1958. Ownership rested with the government for 50 years until being transferred to the NSW Harness Racing Corp in 2002. The damage had been done during those 50 years of neglect. Now these buildings and their contents cannot be given away.


Here, in 1955, an O class tram (thanks to Bruce Caspersonn who corrected an error in the text here) rattles out of the sheds, along the canal and into The Crescent heading up Ross Street towards Parramatta Road and, thence, into the city to its terminus at Fort Macquarie (Bennelong Point). This trip was two sections and cost 1/-.

With all the developments in the preceding 54 years, it is difficult to reproduce the '55 image. The curve is now underneath the circular overhang of the pacing track - it was too dangerous to venture under there. Standing as close as I could - would that I had the guts to jump into the canal! - I took a photograph to the south (the concrete monstrosity) and to the north (the canal).


Such a sobering set of images ... Let us pay tribute to the past and to its people.


Image 1: Taken in 1930 as a tram heads West up Broadway just prior to turning into Glebe Point Road. Sydney University is on the left.
Image 2: Taken in 1957 as trams turn to their right from Parramatta Road into Glebe Point Road.
Image 3: Taken in 1958 as a tram progresses along Glebe Point Road.

I also wish to extend my appreciation to LindsayBridge for access to the superb set of tram images on his Flickr site