Sydneytecture

I'm putting up this photo mainly because it's so beautiful (it enlarges magnificently). It's an evocative Hyde Park around 1928, possibly by Cazneaux by the look of it, with the silhouette of the David Jones department store behind, and the cupolas of the Trust Building on King Street beyond. The Archibald Fountain won't be constructed in front for a few more years. You know, I remember when it was still common to see old men with nothing more to do than sit on park benches. A different world. The same spot on Google (clickable), with probably the same Moreton Bay fig behind those people sitting in the middle.

A beautiful artistic shot. At right - Commonwealth Bank 1928; centre - MLC Building 1938; left - Prudential Building 1939 (it only lasted twenty years before a brutalist monstrosity replaced it, itself now happily demolished for the new metro station.) Google Street View (clickable)

Looking west from Market Street. It gives an indication to modern eyes that Sydney then was still an industrial city with a working harbour. I remember a lot of grit and grime around the harboursides and inner city, old buildings blackened from decades of smoke and smog. Now everything is spruced and restored, so you'd never know. In a previous post, I mentioned that Pyrmont Bridge was the main western entry to the city, and crossing point to the Eastern Suburbs, now replaced by tunnels and overpasses. This picture looks like morning peak, there are rows of double-decker buses on the bridge heading in. And of course today (clickable). While the bridge is still there, it's been pedestrianised, and its off-ramp made way for the Western Distributor which cuts through.

War-time Sydney. This air-raid shelter was on the park's south side near Park St, beside the avenue of figs. You can make out the bulk of the, I think, YWCA on Liverpool St behind the sign on the right. And same spot today, over there by the trees behind the lamp post. This 1943 aerial shows it, those diggings in the centre beside the avenue of trees.

That's the old Pyrmont Bridge crossing the bay, built around 1850s and demolished in 1900 when the new one was built right along its north side. There's the 'new' Pyrmont Bridge straight ahead, which was decommissioned and pedestrianised as part of the Darling Harbour redevelopment in the 1980s. Before then it was fully functioning, and I remember it as the main western crossing point of the city until the Western Distributor took its place.

By triangulation of the steeple of St James with Sydney Grammar in this pic below, and allowing for the fact that Oxford Street was widened on its north side in 1916... ... we arrive here today. 🙂

The very same corner, across two centuries. 1856. The top of William Street, where the famous Coke sign is today, was just a rock shelf before it was built on. 1896. The tram lines have been put through, which congest the narrow main road. Later, after WW1, the entire south side of William Street will be demolished to widen it. 1946. The widened street works well, for the while. 1965. The trams have been removed from Sydney in place of buses, but the growing population still causes increasing congestion. By 1970, the west and south sides of this intersection will disappear for the new Kings Cross tunnel which will go underneath. Today. For the record, this was taken in the exact spot as the other photos above. It's just the reorientation and redevelopment of the roads have shifted due to the tunnel below.