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My grandmother, devastated by the death of her youngest son in a traffic accident in London, moved from her corner shop in suburban Hornsby to a semi-detached terrace in North Bondi in August 1956. Between then and her death, aged 88+, in April 1984, I spent many a summer holiday in and around the Bondi area. The changes, as you would expect over those ensueing 55 years, were massive.
Compare the first two photographs. On the right-hand-side in each photograph, one can just discern a trio of two storey terraces. Many of the shops retain the shame shell on the RHS but the LHS has been totally rebuilt. In my opinion, the entire mall is sad and faded, and just sooo full of ... of ... stuff!
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In the good old days ... Hah!
Electric trams trundled through the main shopping strip of Bondi Junction from 1884, ceasing in 1960. Bondi Junction is up the hill from Bondi Beach. After the wilful destruction of the tramways system by a government lacking vision and unable to stand up to vested interests, a section of Oxford Street was converted into a mall and through traffic diverted to 'Sid Einfeld Drive' which is an elevated roadway a couple of blocks to the right (north) of the top photograph.
The two modern photographs were taken only a few metres apart the first looking west and the one with the buses, looking east . Rising in front of me to the east, was the massive bulk of the new Bondi Junction which is dominated by a Westfield shopping mall streteching out of photo to both the left and the right - into which I hesitate to venture because I so easily get lost and then I panic.
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