Mystery Photo XIII - No Parking

Has it really been more than a year since the last Mystery Photo ? Well 2011 was a little forgettable for many reasons, so let's just put it aside and start 2012 with a lucky 13th Mystery Photo. As always, the photo below is somewhere in Newtown (sometimes liberally interpreted, but this time very much central Newtown) and the goal is to be the first to identify the location as a comment here on the blog.

 

Bonus points for identifying the shop at the front of this building, and the popular new eatery from which this happy scene is visible.

Newtown Station January 2012 Update

When plans were finally committed to for the Newtown Station renovations, I couldn't believe that it wouldn't be until the end of 2012 before the works were finished. I guess now it's January 2012 it's starting to become clear that we really won't have an accessible station until the end of this year.

There has however been some obvious progress, and you can see from the photo below that the new station will absolutely dwarf the existing buildings, and indeed the surroundings.

According to the summary posted on the construction site boundary, the lifts will be installed this month and next, and the internal works for the retail are ongoing. Indeed it seems like some progress is being made on the original station buildings; hopefully we won't have to wait until the end of 2012 for them to be ready.

From upstairs at the Townie you can see that the concrete base of the concourse has been laid over the graveyard of the old kebab shop, hopefully sealing in any toxic leakage that may have built up over the countless late nights it was operating.

Hatches IX - Jan 2012

Hello and Happy New Year ! It's been a while since the last update here; as always lots has been going on up and down and just off King Street - below is just a summary of a few of the changes that have occurred in the last 6 months; hopefully it won't be 6 months to the next update !

Well it's January 2012 and now we're starting to understand why it's going to take until the end of this year to complete the Newtown Station upgrade. The progress is summarised in the notice below, see the detailed post for more information and photos.

Newtown Station Progress

Also still ongoing is the long running Energy Australia works; although Ausgrid, as they are now known have promised to repair the King St footpaths once all the shops connect to the beautiful black boxes on the footpaths, there's no news yet whether the road destruction on Wilson St, Angel St etc will be repaired. There are contact details below from their website:

If you have any questions, please contact our project team on the 24/7 project information line 1800 643 608 or email info-kingstreet@ausgrid.com.au.

Wilson St EnergyAustralia Repairs

New Openings

• Quite a few small bars popping up in King Street finally, including Bench, Jester Seeds (Newtown vibe and Darlinghurst prices), and Kuki Tanuki in Erskineville, finally emerging from interminable renovations.
• Sydney's Mexican food trend has spread to Newtown, with the opening of Beach Bistro next to the Hub, replacing the short lived (and Mayor-loved) Soprano's pizzeria; and the slow but promised opening of Mad Mex 
• A swanky looking Basque inspired Kingfish Bistro as SoKi continues its fashionable evolution
• A Korean barbecue restaurant has bravely opened above Tamana's North Indian diner; graveyard for Tamana's Upstairs, Posh Spice and most recently Top Level Pizza

Going ...

Old Advertising on King St

• The Laundromat near King Street Cyclery burnt down spectacularly - revealing some great old advertising on the wall of the bike shop. Will be ever be nostalgic about today's advertising ? Hard to imagine !
• Sadly Wilson St Gallery closed without much warning - apparently moved to Danks St, to be replaced (inexplicably) by a ballet shop Repertoire - that I give 6 months.
• King St Cyclery itself has closed for renovations, moving to their repair centre near Marrickville Metro. Cheeky Monkey are still going strong
• Taste Chicken surprisingly disappeared, not sure if anyone knows the story behind that.
• The much loved Freaky Tiki in the Newtown Hotel closed - will it reappear after the renovations ?

Development Applications

• A chain milk bar (above) to replace the suddenly closed African Feeling. I hope the mural is protected. 
• Yet another gelato shop to replace the camera shop next door to African feeling. I guess they've seen how popular Gelatomassi is
• The owners of the post office have applied to add some apartments out the back - across the road from the much loved Varga Bar.

Reviews

• There's a whole industry of food bloggers out there now, hard to keep track of them all ! A special mention though to Detective Chow who has quite an original take on the reviews; and has visited two Newtown locations recently.
• New Vietnamese joint Rice Paper got a write up in the SMH Jan 21; coincidentally the same day the Mayor dined there. Recommended !
  

Random 

• Whispers of The Hub coming back to life - what will this be ?
• Some very cool guerrilla knitting outside the Neighbourhood centre
  

You can see all the links that I have shared on Twitter via my bit.ly public timeline.

Hatches Batches and Dispatches VIII

A bit of scandal in SoKi (South King Street) after an apparent management coup at the popular Pastizzi cafe - leading to a boycott call taken up on Facebook and Twitter (and hopefully in the real world). There are some more details and photos on Street Food.

Meanwhile the interminable Energy Australia (now re-branded AusGrid - at least their info shop near the old Effies) works roll on.


New Openings

• Charming World grocer - in the distant and seldom visited upper reaches of King St - wins the award for best new name this edition.

• Ramen Bar adds some spice to the ground floor of Berkelouw in Newtown (which was opened by KRudd ex-PM - they forgot the Mayor). Already reviewed on Street Food.
• A new(ish) cafe Pickwick's on Enmore Road is getting good reviews.

Farewells

• Much loved North Newtown institution Rosalinas is for lease
• Crepe Kingdom on Enmore Road didn't last long; looks like some financial issues
• The Eatery opposite old Elizabeths site is boarded up - not sure if for renovations or replacement. Anyone ?
• Braintree Hemp and VietMaison north of Missenden Road both shut up shop recently

Development Applications

 

• A small bar to replace Pleasure Zone (above) ?
• A games Cafe on North King Street (details - while the DA is active)

Reviews

• Three Newtown bookstores in a recent Sydney Top 10
  

Random

• There is a DA with Marrickville Council to redevelop the TA Andrews funeral home on Enmore Road into apartments and shops (commenter on Hatches VII) 
• After 30 years, Edgeware Family Practice is moving to a practice in Church St Newtown (also from the comments)
• Sopranos near the Hub has started live music - as has Corridor, which is also hosting some Comedy Festival acts

You can see all the links that I have shared on Twitter via my bit.ly public timeline.

Hatches Batches and Dispatches VII

It's time for the first issue of Hatches for 2011. The big news in town has been the long awaited commencement of work on Newtown Station, with the roof of the platform removed one weekend in February, and the remaining structure now being surrounded in hoardings and slowly removed. Sadly after waiting so long it's still not until the end of 2012 that we will get the new station.

Another issue that has been generating a lot of concern is the long running Energy Australia works; especially given the quality of streets (Wilson St for example) that apparently are considered finished. While the King Street footpath will be repaired it seems we're stuck with the little black boxes outside all the shops - the price we have to pay to get the overhead wires removed.

Wilson St EnergyAustralia Repairs

New Openings

Pie Tin on Brown St

• Pie Tin opened in the location of the old Pretty Dog on Brown Street. In a nice touch they also added a plaque giving some history of the building - hopefully this will be a trend that is continued.

 

• There's a new(ish) Turkish restaurant Matee in the location of the old Bhan Thai restaurant next to Moose. Finally checked it out recently - recommended.
• The Newtown Hotel has reopened as Freaky Tiki Bar - apparently for a 'while' until renovations get under way. Given the popularity of Freaky Tiki I wouldn't be surprised if some sort of Tiki theme survived the renovations - here's hoping.
• Funky Cafe re-opened with new owners after being closed for a while.
• Elizabeth's Bookshops moved down the road into the old Newtown Deli (which moved further down King Street to avoid the mad rents). At the moment there are two Elizabeth's on King St, with some pretty cheap good books on sale while they move.
  

Development Applications

• Sydney Uni snuck out a master plan for Abercrombie Street while no-one was looking. 
• The Townie applied for later trading hours for their smoking areas.
• A plan for an art-gallery on Brown Street

Reviews

• Cafe Newtown got a review in the lateral eating blog, and the whole of South King Street got a write up on InnerWest Lifestyle, reminding me I really should finish my post on the same topic I started a year ago - before all the businesses mentioned close !
  

Random

• A Newtown local nominated himself for a minor Darwin award after tagging a police car - outside the Newtown Police Station. 
• Quartly's Mitre Ten is consolidating into the back shop (on the Whately Street carpark) after 95 years pn the same site - and 125 in Newtown. The main store apparently will be replaced by a bloody chemist - just what Newtown needs. There's a photo from the 70s here on the excellent Newtown Project site.
• In better news, Marrickville council are voting soon to implement a smoking ban in pubic places - that could lead to the incongruous situation of no smoking on just one half of King St
• Finally, a call to arms in the Inner West Courier to re-unite Newtown in one council - although they neglected the bit about me being reinstated on the Mayoral Throne.

You can see all the links that I have shared on Twitter via my bit.ly public timeline.

Newtown Station Platform Demolition

Newtown residents were notified of the commencement of Phase 3 renovations with the note below this week, promising the demolition of the platform buildings and construction of the temporary shelters.

Sure enough, this afternoon (Feb 19th) the machinery was in and the 1924 platform building was being carted away

 

 Old platform roof gone

 Temporary platform buildings and shelter

Constructing new shelter

You can also see the supports for the new entrance (concrete pillars) going up in the background in the photo above.

Roofless Platform

The Hive Evolves Again

I was surprised to see yet another Development Application for the Newtown (though most people think of it as Erskineville) site known for a while as the Hive, formerly used as the Mardi Gras workshops. There's been a long history of Development Applications for the site, which has been empty for a significant period of time.

Hive Building

The Mayor has been tracking the evolution of the Hive (not to be confused with the relatively new Hive Bar) since May 2009, when the first revision of the DA occurred. At that stage, it seemed as if the long running saga had finally come to a conclusion, with most people satisfied with the compromise of a single story supermarket, although the Friends of Erskineville were still holding out for something else (what was not quite clear). Sometime during the course of last year, intended occupiers Woolworths, who had been hoping to open their 'gourmet' brand Thomas Dux, must have lost interest, as the most recent DA prior to this week (minor amendments around the internals) mentioned IGA as the tenants.

The new Application has somewhat surprisingly upped the ante, reversing the previous application by adding not one but two stories of residential apartments. Somewhat naively the Traffic Impact statement claims there will be no discernible traffic impact from the additional residencies, as they will all be sold without car spaces. While this is great in principal, I predict a future of the supermarket manager clamping resident's cars that are left in the supermarket's limited parking spaces, and car shuffling around the area's limited parking spaces.

Artists Impression

Despite the above, there's actually a lot to support in this application. It certainly looks smart enough in the photos above, and infill developments like these so close to two train lines are certainly preferable to acres of Mc Mansions in the Hills District. I can't help wondering if the hold-out protesters from the previous proposal are now regretting their opposition to the last-but-one application; as it would appear to have triggered a re-think.
 
As is often the case with these DAs, there's lot's of  information to be found in the Historical Impact Statement (pdf)  for those of you with an interest in our past. Below is a photo from the report looking down Erskineville Road.

So what do you think ? Is it too big ? Will the traffic ruin the Village ? Or is about time the abandoned sites along Erskineville Road were developed ? 

Newtown Station 2011 Update

It's been a while since my last update on the Newtown Station renovations but over Christmas some more details were released accompanying the Development Application to Sydney Council. Before going into some more detail on what the final outcome will look like, some 'milestones' news.

Artists Impression

According to the Project Manager, Phase1 (archaeological and some demolition works) is complete. Phase 2 (ground work and piling associated with the construction of the new concourse and walkway) is nearing completion, and Phase 3 (main construction works) will be starting soon. The project is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2012.

The end of 2012 seems a long way away - apparently the main reason it will take so long is the need to keep the station running while doing the works, and the need for 'track possessions' - when the trains don't run - which are apparently limited to 4/year (although I could swear they are more frequent).

Apart form the artist's impression above, probably the best idea of the overall layout of the new station comes from the upgrade plan below. The new concourse is quite a long way down the platform, pretty much on top of the existing 1927 platform building, which is to be demolished. There will also be a new entry from Thomas Street, behind the Newtown Central shopping centre.
 

One thing I couldn't find, despite looking everywhere, was an impression of what the revised walkway roof would look like. The original design, or at least the artists impression of it, caused quite a bit of controversy when the original plans were announced, so I was curious to see what the announced more discrete canopy would look like. The closest I could find was in the sketch below, showing the view from the side of the station - I can only assume no impressions were generated to avoid controversy ! Let me know if you manage to find an impression anywhere.

Walkway canopy
In order to provide cover to the access walkway, a canopy is to be constructed
between King Street and the new concourse.  A 4 metre wide walkway canopy commences at King Street adjacent the existing booking office building and continues along the northern side of the walkway to the concourse building where it continues down to the new station concourse building, where it would terminate beneath the canopy of the concourse. Drawings of the design and the proposed form of the walkway are located in Appendix C

I did find the above about the canopy in the 'REF' - Review of Environmental Factors - but none of the diagrams in Appendix C sated my curiosity !

Concourse Level Side View

The DA also has a large set of detailed plans. Those interested in history should check out Appendix D1 - the Heritage Report. The remaining Appendix D volumes are mostly more modern photos, with the exception of Appendix D7 which contains an ammendment to the original HIS, updated after the original plans were modified, which is where I learnt that the stairs (1892 originals) will be retained as an emergency exit from the platform.

Building the platform in 1927

Appendix E - the archaeological report - contains even more history, unfortunately broken into 7 chunks, I guess to facilitate easy downloading for those still on Tony Abbott approved dial-up.

So it's a long wait, but I think the finished product will be worth it. Next step - find out what's happening to those Tram Sheds !

Mystery Photo XII - Milk Bar

Anyone had a chocolate milkshake here lately ?

Not in Newtown any more Toto - Surry Hills 1992

After I recently published some extracts from the 1992 Student's Guide to Sydney Pubs (with content suspiciously similar to the 1992 Sydney Pub Guide) there was a request from Twitter's @Surry_Hills to share the reviews for Surry Hills.

Whereas the Newtown described in 1992 is instantly recogniseable to today's Newtonians, (with the notable exception of affordable accomodation) the same can't be said for Surry Hills. A haunt for black-leather wearing musicians, noted for the smoke and a 'nostalgic sense of desperation'. Back then you could 'walk into Surry Hills pubs and receive unwelcome and sometimes bizarre looks'; these days anything vaguely dangerous has been priced out of town and the only risk you have is not being hip enough for the staff.
To make you really sad, here's the review of the Hopetoun in the days of $2.50 schooners and no cover charge. R.I.P the Hoey.

Newtown in 1992 Student Pub Guide - Part II

In my last post I shared an introduction from the 1992 Student Guide to Sydney Pubs, describing the 'disproportionate number of Thai restaurants' and Newtown as an 'affordable place to live'. At least one of those is still true.

This time I'll share some of the actual reviews; my OCR is rubbish so you're going to have to make do with page scans which look deceptively old. 1992 wasn't that long ago - was it !? Click on the images for more legible versions.

The Sando reads much as a review would today - apart from the band names and the beer prices. Interesting how beer prices were a feature of this Pub Guide - I guess it reflects the target audience !


The Bank Hotel review seems to confuse Sleepers and the front bar; the loss of Sleepers as a bar to drink in rather than walk through is the greatest tragedy of the recent long-running renovations of the Bank.


Nothing too exciting in the Marly review - except the fake Duck Pond ! The Royal on Abercrombie also gets a half review as the beer garden out the back is being built.


Finally - RIP the faux tudor (Germanic style wooden walls apparently) of the Student Prince on Parramatta Rd - drinking bar of choice of the Mayor's soccer team back in the day. The last day of the season coincided with the last night of the Prince and we were unfortunately obliged to drink the pub dry - free of charge.


Lastly, The Shakespeare (Coopers old name) was so gnarly back in the day it didn't even rate a mention. How times change !

Newtown in 1992 Student Pub Guide

The 1992 Student Guide to Sydney Pubs, written in those long forgotten days before the internet, features a section on Newtown, including reviews of The Marlborough, The Bank, The Newtown, The Sando, as well as long forgotten neighbouring bars such as the Student Prince and Sydney Saloon.

The relevant page is below (click on the article to embiggen):
The disproportionate number of Thai restaurants are still there, but sadly the fruit shops don't stay open late any more, and you're more likely to be visiting Crispy Inn to satisfy late night cravings. Nearly 20 years on, the Landsdowne, Annandale and Sando are still your best bet for pub rock in the area, though thankfully no-one refers to Newtown as the 'Paddington of the South' any more; you can understand why the author didn't go on to an illustrious journalistic career !

I'll try and scan post some of the individual reviews if there's any interest.