The Rocks - 138 Cumberland Street

This building could just be seen in the corner of yesterday's "ghost" building (thanks, Joan). It is far from the first building on the corner of Cumberland Street and Long's Lane (originally known as Maori Lane), having been constructed between 1880 and 1882. It has had a speckled history going from drapery, to butchery, to boarding house, to delapidated squat, to recruitment office. According to historian Grace Karskens, Longs Lane in the 1860s was far from sanitary, with seven cramped houses sharing one water tap.

The Rocks - off Long's Lane

Before Christmas interrupted, I was on a meander through The Rocks, which is a small suburb in the oldest part of the city. A lot has been knocked down over time, and even more has been gentrified. However, the "feel" of its origins - cramped, higgledy-piggledy, impoverished - can still be seen. There are countless laneways, an over-supply of pubs, and numerous squished terraces where the living conditions must have been atrocious, especially if you were down-exposed-drain from others. Many of the demolished premises have their history exposed, with a number of "digs" occurring at snail's-pace. There is much beauty in these stark reminders.

The Rocks - the hoi polloi

The Rocks is the area to which the convicts were assigned when Sydney was founded in 1788. It was steep, rugged, and barren. The convicts were not locked up, neither night, nor day. Being banish-ed to the end of the world was considered punishment enough. Today, this area is much sanitised. Not totally bull-dozed, but probably unrecognisable even to folk who lived there in 1900.