Sydneytecture

not Moscow. Enmore

Town Hall station has some pictures of George St during the subway construction. I took photos of them for a 'then and now', overlaying, scaling and cropping to make three consistent matches. In 1929, the buildings going up here are; on the middle left, Gowings; middle, Murdochs; right, Woolworths. By 1931 the buildings are complete, and the subway works have shifted. This is the same view today, taken from the same window of what used to be an elegant Victorian bank, which was gutted in the eighties and converted to a fast food franchise. The common point for the photos was the second floor corner windows of the Woolworths building - the only feature that remained constant.

Like most locals, I'd always thought the Enmore Theatre, venue for boutique and specialised acts, was a classic art deco landmark. I chanced across these pics below at the National Archive which show it's actually a renovation of an earlier Federation style.

Taran-tara. Welcome to Homoworld™, an inclusive division of Themed Lifestyles Inc the city council feels that rainbow banners should be hung around Darlo to define it as "diverse"; rather like a dog marking its territory. The fact that 95% of the people you see on the street are straight is glossed over. a vision in pink. Taylor Square from a different perspective After a year of roadworks, if Oxford St's "beautification' is as much a success as the one at the Cross, prepare for tumbleweeds down the main drag. NEVER let bureaucrats decide how to 'improve' a bohemian district that's taken decades to cultivate. You might as well let developers take over. - Oh wait... That row of terraces next to the pub in Liverpool St used to be quite an institution to those who knew about them. They were bordellos for ladies of the night who'd gotten long in the tooth, having been on the game for years. Slappers and boilers, think Magda Subanzki's charac...

Taken in early WWII at the bus stops in Carrington St atop Wynyard Station. Note the camouflaged Narrabeen double-decker. City workers from the Northern Beaches often used to board in town in those days, in boarding-houses that is, not buses, and go home on the weekends. And the same scene today.

Iconic Oz photograper Max Dupain took this shot of the NSW State Library in the winter of 1941 (you can tell the season by the long morning shadows) Quite by chance, in the winter of 2006 this lady strode into shot