Do you hear the people sing?

Capitol Theatre, for the umpteenth time. Sign on Town Hall corner, with the old Bebarfalds building in the background..

Corridor of power

Sydney Town Hall, corner of George & Druitt Streets

A second contribution to the Weekend in Black and White community.

The ceremonial heart of the City

Some of you may disagree with my title here. However, this is the intersection of George Street with both Park Street, and its extension Druitt Street. In the lower shot, I am standing on the Town Hall steps. Hopefully, before I die, the buildings opposite the Town Hall will be razed and a public park created. Council already owns many of the buildings, and are just waiting for a few hold-outs. Below this intersection, is a criss-cross of arcades. Below the arcades is the city-circle subway.

Grey, but not bleak

Lincraft is just on this corner, and I was looking for squares of felt to use as grass, and mud, and a pond, and stuff to go with the village through which our wooden train set runs. It was spitting a smidge, but the people scurrying back to their burrows after lunch were not overly worried. I am looking south, down York Street towards the Sydney Town Hall. On my left is the Queen Victoria Building. Back over my right shoulder, out of sight, is forever imprinted on my psyche as the corner of York'n'Market'n'Clarence where my father started work in 1936 as a 15 year old, on the 4th Floor in the haberdashery firm, D&W Murray. He used to pack suitcases for the travelling-salesmen who did set routes through the country areas of the state.

Art and About - A grey tsunami

We are in the middle of 'Spring fair' excitement in our city. The weather is not co-operating. We had blue skies and fine days during August, but September and October have been grey and dull.


This is my take on netting strung across THE major intersection of the CBD, right in front of the Town Hall. It is a challenge to make the entire work interesting in a photgraph during the day (Ann at Sydney Meandering has a shot of the entire work plus anchor points). The addition of lights during the evening make a difference (a random shot shared on Flikr). However, as is my want, I wondered is showing just detail would add interest.

Chauvel - Memories of early Australian cinema

It may surprise you, but I am not a 'multi-plex' sort of gal. No siree! I am an independent cinema consumer - an 'indie'. I don't do horror, nor sci-fi, nor budget-busters. Nor anything that relies on running and slamming of doors to convey either narrative or character.

There are two cinemas within walking distance, the Verona and the Chauvel. Both are on Oxford Street in Paddington and are operated by the Palace Cinema group. I feel blessed. They both show the best of world cinema from the Middle East, Europe, Asia and the Americas. At the moment they are showing the Spanish Film Festival.


Charles & Elsa Chauvel were pioneering Australian film-makers from the 30s through to the end of the 50s when Charles died of heart failure. They were reknown in this country for films like 'Forty Thousand Horsemen', 'Rats of Tobruk', and 'Jedda' with this last, based on aboriginal displacement, being their main legacy.

The Chauvel Cinema has two screens and is housed in part of the Paddington Town Hall sharing office space with the Australian Film Institute (AFI).

We are not amused!

I go to Europe for three weeks and return to find my city decked out like a tart. My . city . in . tart's . clothing. Enough now. All the dressups can go back in the box. All the banners. All the tents. Be gone!

Then & Now - York Street

Last Friday afternoon, about 3 o'clock, I walked up Observatory Hill from The Writers' Festival down at Walsh Bay, on my way to a 4 o'clock session with Keating & Wessel at the City Recital Centre in Angel Place. Negotiating the pedestrian underpass at Kent Street, I sidled along the 1856 rebuild of Saint Phillips' and nipped across York Street to Church Hill.

I knew the view I wanted to replicate, and clung to a marooned traffic light as vehicles of all shapes and sizes whizzed off the bridge around my very ears! We are looking due south down the gunnels of the city to the Town Hall. The top photograph was taken in 1967. The TH is a spot in the distance, midway on the right is the AWA Tower, nowadays dwarfed. On the left is the Presbyterian Church of St Stephens, now mostly converted into very swish apartments.


Follow the yellow Hillsbus, as it wends its way down York Street.

The biggest difference, other than the sheer busyness of the modern scene? Yep, the greening of the city.

Pretty cool, huh?

Unvaulted - a panoramic skyline

In 1873 an unnamed photographer made the perilous ascent to the top of the clock tower on Sydney Town Hall. The clock face was still to be put in place, and he and two others climbed up steps and a series of ladders until they were 190 feet above George Street. The objective was to take a photograph between each of the columns of the finial - ten in all.


In 2007, photographer Peter Murphy made the same climb, and duplicated the original ten images. In his studio, he digitally stitched together the original ten images to form a panorama. He did the same with his recent ten images. Then he lined them up to enable those interested to make a direction comparison of their city 134 years apart.


Each of these stitched images is on display in the renovated Lower Ground Floor of the Town Hall until next Monday.

Murphy has also animated the original set of images and they are displayed on the wall in an never-ending loop, as well as on a computer where the viewer can forward and backward 'til their heart's content.

I have seen the Panorama Mesdag in The Hague. Our panorama falls a bit short. Mesdag was set apart in its own room and was 360 degrees with sound effects. However, I still found this panorama engrossing as it is of a city that I know intimately.

I could only find nine of the ten originals on the City of Sydney data-base.

Top Left - looking north down George St with the old markets in the foreground not the QVB Top Centre - looking across North Hyde Park to the spire of St James Top Right - looking east along Park Street through the centre of Hyde Park Middle Left - looking across South Hyde Park Middle Centre - looking south down George St with St Andrews in the fore-ground Middle Right - looking across St Andrews to Broadway and a very distant Sydney University Bottom Left - looking to the head of Darling Harbour Bottom Centre - looking across the centre of Darling Harbour with Pyrmont Bridge on the RHS Bottom Right - looking across the beginning of the Parramatta River with Millers Point on the RHS

The missing image is the tenth one which is looking north down York Street.