Sydney Council Elections - the Candidates

In the previous post I outlined why I was advocating a vote for Clover in the 2012 council elections. In this post we look at some of the other candidates for council and in particular for Lord Mayor

I'm not a big believer in the big parties taking over local councils; ultimately for them it's all about getting hold of developer donations. While the Labor candidate Linda Scott seems like a decent person with some good policies; at the end of the day she is still the Labor candidate who will ultimately end up doing what she is told - there are already signs of this. It's only 8 years ago that Labor merged South Sydney (some history here) with Sydney in the hope of creating a super council dominated by Labor; instead accidentally engineering Clover Moore's rise to power.

Hell will freeze over before a Mayor of Newtown will recommend a vote for the Liberals. They are campaigning on a Newman style slash and burn approach; and while it's possibly not fair to judge on the sins of the brother, the Liberal's are also offering us Tony Abbott's sister Christine Foster, who, sexual politics notwithstanding, is still a Liberal and related to that man ! The Liberals are also committed to increasing parking in the city; always a proven way to reduce congestion.


The Greens are the Greens - by now a known quantity. Their biggest problem here is that they are up against a popular progressive Mayor who shares many of their policies. I'm sure they'd get a lot more votes if Clover wasn't on the scene; as it is they're a good option for a second preference !

The team that are getting most of the publicity leading up to the election are Living Sydney. Although they've borrowed the name from Clover's old team, that's where the similarity ends. The team are a pro-business lobby who've aligned themselves with anti-Clover, anti-cycling and anti-progressive forces. Their policies (apart from the anti-cycling) are vague to the point of meaningless, and the Living Sydney mayoral candidate, Angela Vithoulkas has taken to making statements about all sorts of policy areas that are actually outside the scope of the Lord Mayor; demonstrating at best a naivety if not dishonesty about what is actually feasible for her to fix.

Not surprisingly, Living Sydney are the favourites of the Daily Telegraph, who have been gunning for Clover for the last 2-3 years. That on its own should be enough of a warning for prospective voters.

So there it is; as always, interested in your feedback.

Update September 3 - one candidate not mentioned here was Australia Sex Party candidate Zahra Stardust; mostly because it doesn't appear to be a serious candidature, given she has been a no-show at the candidates forum. However Zahra was the subject of a puff piece in the SMH today.

Update September 5 - I got a very polite email from Housing Action reminding me that they too are running for Sydney Council. With a ticket very much supporting the least well off in our council area theirs is a voice that should be heard on council. You can see the candidate bios here. Housing Action are preferencing the Greens.

Old Motor Advertising

Last September, a fire on King Street (good set of photos here) in the Laundromat next to the King St Cyclery revealed (after demolition) an old advertisement on the side of the cyclery building. It was a great looking blast from the past - until of course it got tagged by some tossers a couple of days later.

As it was briefly

As if that wasn't insult enough, once the now empty block was put on the market, someone thought it would be a great idea to paint over the wall altogether, leaving yet another invitation to tagger morons. Sydney music enthusiast Greg Poppleton has been following the story of this old ad on his blog; which I recommend anyone interested in this story read. He even spotted a potential culprit for the second crime in this post !

Happily - all is not lost, and it appears the wall will be recreated at the Motor Life Museum at Albion Park. Credit to Greg Poppleton for chasing this up and ensuring this little piece of history will remain in some form. Check out the full story here.

Hatches X - April 2012

In the 3 months since the January edition a lot has changed on and around King Street; not a lot of it positive. Most of the dispatches over the last few months have been of much-loved local businesses - in their place more and more generic franchises have popped up. Following the migration of the many generic clothing shops from the also suffering Oxford Street, there's a risk we're losing what makes King St special. On the positive side this trend is mostly confined to King St north of the station and SoKi or South King Street is going from strength to strength.

Newtown Station April 2012

The Newtown Station renovations grind on towards their end 2012 finish, and we're starting to get an idea of what the finished product will look like. Here's my January update. Not much action on the AusGrid works lately, but there's been a container on Brown Street the last couple of months that is apparently going to support the introduction of Sydney Council Smartpoles between Wilson St and Missenden Road - more details on the council's website here.

New Openings
Not too much to get excited about this time round, most of the openings are the aforementioned chains:

• Mad Mex, MooCow, Gelatissimo have all opened up Newtown branches this year
• A new yoga venue, Yoga Union down on Union street - sorry I missed you last time :)
• Funky Mark V (or so it seems) opened up this weekend - fingers crossed that this incarnation will go the distance, it's a great venue and their support of live music deserves to be rewarded - hopefully that will continue. Update - now called Black Sheep
• A 'local supermarket' is replacing the furniture haven near Vanguard; apparently not a chain or known brand as had been rumoured. Looks like a couple of weeks away
• Young Henry's brewery opened up in the back streets near the flour mills

Going ...
Unfortunately most of the news is here this time:

• Quite spectacularly - Newtown Hotel collapsed last month (I mistakenly thought it was a fire) and remedial works are under way - Watkins Street still closed to cars.
• Many departures of much loved businesses: Books on King (cats and all), So Music (not Hum) a while ago now, Fish, Cinque - both due to the Dendy makeover, but no sign that they will return
• A Coffee and a Yarn have closed leaving cryptic messages about a potential rebirth
• Repressed Records will soon be vacating the beautiful St George's Hall
• The Asian supermarket Qmart near Burger Fuel disappeared without much notice; not sure if it was collateral damage from the short-lived Mr Cheng's up the road.
• Dendy Newtown closed for renovations - no re-opening date at this stage
• Gould's struggling according to their newsletter - but hanging in there. Drop down there and buy something, it's an institution we can't afford to lose. 
• The Ramen noodle bar in Berkelouw has been replaced by a mum and bub's style cafe; according to tipster and reviewer Detective Chow.

Development Applications

• Nothing much of interest. I had to laugh at the advertising for Newtown Village (next to Oporto) implying a nice quite lcoation with a leafy outlook rather than being squeezed between Enmore Road and the train line. Stand by for the noise complaints against Notes Live

Reviews

• There's a whole industry of food bloggers out there now, I've stored some Newtown specific links here for you to explore 
• Detective Chow continues to bring his unique take to food blogging to Newtown 
• Noted Newtown non-fan Terry Durack gave Spencer Guthrie a positive review in the SMH recently

Random 

• Short lived street art in the carpark next to Mitre 10 - already painted over sadly
• New online book review: Newtown Review of Books set up by locals Jean Bedford and Linda Funnell
• The 100 year old advertising uncovered by the burning down of the laundromat has now been painted over after being tagged. See more here.
  

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

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.

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 restaurant Kilimanjaro. 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.

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 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.

Hatches Batches and Dispatches VI

So it's time for another edition of the semi-regular round up of some of the comings and goings on and around King St Newtown in the last month or so. Hoardings have gone up at Newtown Station, there are rumours of movement at Newtown Hotel, whose proposed renovations were recently approved - with 98 conditions ! As well, Newtown was in the news when local sculptor painted an anti-Burqa mural on his wall, challenging the usual local support for free speech and tolerance, and unsurprisingly pleasing Daily Telegraph readers.

The most read link shared by the mayor in the last couple of months though related to the $3.2M Newtown house sale. Not sure what that says !

See below for more:

New Openings

• Sabbaba is close to opening up next door to Max Brenner
  
• The Imperial Hotel re-opened after 3 years and many false re-openings
• The Watershed started a bike-hire scheme that got wide publicity
• @Newtown re-launched as Shush
  

Going ...

• Much loved Funky Cafe closed for nearly a week - not looking good. It's been on the market for a while now
• The much loved but short lived Newtown Gazebo finally fell foul of council safety regs

• Dresser to the mayor, Crazy Horse, is on the market:
  

Development Applications

• Dendy applied to add 10 screens to their Newtown mega-plex; including a tacky mural facing Camperdown Park
  
• Nothing else too exciting this month - click here for all current Newtown DAs from Sydney Council website.
  

Reviews

• The Inner-West focussed Sydney Fringe Festival opened and closed to mixed reviews
• Changing Lanes in Eliza Street was a sell-out success
• Plans for the renovation of Marrickville Metro are attracting much criticism
• Corridor gets a gushing review in the Gold Coast's local rag
  

Random

• There's not much life on King Street, Newtown in Queensland
  
• A For Sale sign appeared and quickly disappeared outside the old Erskineville PYCC

Mystery Photo XI - Pet Procession

It's been a while - but finally it's time for Mystery Photo XI - and the first guest Mystery Photo - thanks to @VerityChambers. Where in town would you find this pet procession ?


BTW Don't ask me - I don't know either !

Hatches Batches and Dispatches V

It's been a while since the last round up of some of the comings and goings on and around King St Newtown. It's getting harder to keep track of the goings on but thankfully I have all of your tips from last month's update and Twitter. The most reported Newtown related news in the last month or so is the possible resumption of houses in Leamington Avenue for RailCorp's proposed Western Express line. The story got a second wind once some discovered the linkage to the famous 'Three Proud People' mural; now unfortunately blocked from view from Macdonaldtown Station by the sound barrier.

New Openings

• Cucina Sopranos on the site of the old Wedgetail
• The Polish restauarant in the old Choclate Dog has a name - New in Town - and gets the mayoral thumbs up - tasty and generous portions.
• A new Vietnamese noodle place called "Pho Sure" opened in the old service station on the corner of Stamore Rd and Liberty St Enmore (nice break from the terrible Thai/Tie puns)
• Dolce and Gelato has had a name change, now called gelato blue. Apart from that all looks the same. 
• Moo Gourmet burgers the latest to take on the site of Mickey's
• King St deli has moved to south king, where there used to be a business centre
• The Bank Hotel has re-opened after the fire 
• A new design shop (cute !) called Lillypad Designs hidden at the back of the newsagent near the Dendy
• Not so new now but not yet mentioned is the nursery next to the controversial car-wash on South King Street;

Development Applications

• The proposed bottlo shop in Newtown Central has a name - Cellarbrations. A chain, of course.
• Speaking of chains, Dominos Pizza coming to (far north) Newtown. Signage looks really garish
• Mostly residential otherwise.

Reviews

• Funky Cafe gets a mention in an SMH article about live music
• Not quite a review, but both Pentimento and Newtown resident and ex-Mr Varga Bar Ben Soutter got quoted in an article about Cafe mobile phone etiquette.
  

Random

• Most visited story the mayor shared in the last month was about ATM skimming on skim street; while Fairfax were too scared to name the bank involved, they did point out that NAB, CBA and ANZ denied it was them and the Pac declined to comment. Go figure.
• A broader inner city story getting too much airtime is the bike lane backlash, led by such likables as former Newtownian (sadly) Alan Jones and the Tele. Sad to say even a Wilson Street local is complaining about the lanes
• Once again, The Imperial is 'opening soon'. Sadly the plans of Sydney Fringe to use the Hub as a venue have come to nothing
• A filtered water fountain has been installed outside the Town Hall (real one, not the pub)
  

Newtown Station Latest

After a long period of silence, the revised Newtown Station renovations were launched this month by local member and Deputy Premier, Carmel Tebbutt and Transport Minister, Davd Campbell. The accompanying press release (pdf) was light on detail, although did contain an intruiging reference to 'including archaeological testing and demolition of the old kebab shop'. The renovations are supposed to cost an extraordinary $31M dollars, you really think we'd be getting more for that than a tarted up old station building, covered walkway and a couple of elevators.

Today

The main change from the previous proposal (read more here and here) is that the gaudy canopy (on the right below) :

has been replaced by a simpler cleaner look, which is an improvement. Interesting though that the revised plan was not provided to the public for comment, and indeed is not online anywhere. The Mayor's requests to Carmel Tebbutt's office for any further information have not been responded to.

Probably because this was about the 17th launch of station renovation plans (a NSW Labor specialty) there wasn't a lot of press, apart from this very brief article in the Inner West Courier. The comments on that article reflect the general cynicism that this will actually go ahead.

However a D.A. has already been lodged with the council, although intruigingly only for soil quality testing (those kebabs again) rather than any demolition or construction work. I've got to say it's the most detailed documentation I've ever seen, given the limited scope of the works. Maybe that's where some the $31M is going. According to the press release a tender has been called for the demolition of the kebabery as well; still, I'll only be assured this is real when I see signs of some construction rather than destruction.

One Year of the Mayor of Newtown

One year ago on April 19th the Mayor of Newtown announced his arrival in the on-line world with this post. It seems just a few weeks ago that I was marking the 6 month anniversary of the blog; indeed in terms of output the second 6 months have been a lot quieter than the first 6 months; roughly half the number of posts. That can be attributed to some pent up stories prior to launch, as well as the distractions of a Sydney summer !

The Top 5 all time posts has just one new entry since October, a post which discussed the popular proposed renovation of Newtown Hotel, hopefully bringing back the verandahs. The top 5 posts for the first year of Mayor of Newtown were:

• Newtown Station Renovation
• Mayor's Top 5 Pubs
• Newtown Hotel Renovation
• Mayor's Top 5 Eyesores
• What of the Hub ?

It shows that readers share the Mayor's two main interests - urban renewal and drinking venues ! In terms of absolutes, Google Analytics tells me that the Newtown station had a total of ~ 500 unique views; and that the site overall has had 5000 'unique visitors' for a total of around 16,000 pageviews; and that a quarter of my visitors now arrive from Google (in the early days it was almost all Twitter).

A recent popular addition has been the Hatches Batches and Dispatches series; an occasional round up of new openings, closures, Development Applications and random news from Newtown. The first edition is the third most visited post of this year; happily there are two Mystery posts (one bar, one photo) in this year's top 5, and the Mystery Photos continue to be popular.

Six months ago I also kicked off the Mayor on Posterous and Facebook, to accompany the Mayor's Twitter presence that was launched simultaneously with this site. They've proved less popular - I've more or less given up on Posterous, as the gap I thought it filled possibly doesn't really exist. I might give it another go; maybe for three line reviews of new bars, restaurants and cafes. The Facebook presence has also drawn little interest - under 200 'fans' compared to the 800 Twitter followers and 6000 members of Facebook's much older I Love Newtown group.

To celebrate my birthday I got myself a present - some mini-cards from Moo.com. There are 5 varieties in all, all with the same obverse. I've started leaving them around the town, so keep your eyes open and let me know if you find them.

What's next ? More of the same I'd say - although, as always, I welcome your suggestions. In terms of the main interests of my readers Newtown Station, The Hub and the Tram Sheds all remain unresolved, although it looks like The Hive will become a supermarket development still hasn't started. The last year has finally seen some bars joining Madame Fling Flongs in providing an alternative to Newtown's pubs; and hopefully that trend will continue.

Thanks for your support and Happy Birthday to me !

Mystery Photo X - Red Door

From the Farm Door of Mystery Photo IX, we move to a slightly scarred red door, lurking in the back streets of Newtown. Where exactly ?

Mystery Photo IX Revealed - Farm Door

Mystery Photo IX asked where in Newtown the above 'farm door' could be found. It was a sinch for DarkStarDeity, who very quickly posted:

That's the boarded-up back door to the old stable in Crooks Lane (just off Church St), generally referred to as "The Shed" (since corrected to Shack). I was actually going to send you a photo of this building myself for one of the mystery photos as I live near it

Given that I was hoping this was a more challenging Mystery Photo I removed the comment to give others a chance at guessing the location, which no-one managed for three weeks or so until Smacky-wolf chipped in with the correct location.

Crook's Lane doesn't get mentioned in Google Maps, though from this street view you can just see the shed at the end of the lane. In the standard Newtown view, it's the elbow shaped lane in the pocket bounded by Church Street, King Street, Mechanic's Lane and Hordern Street.


Consenus is now that the Shed is actually known by its inhabitants as The Shack, but other than that, there's precious little to tell about this unusual-for-Newtown building - unless readers can provide more information

Mystery Photo IX - Farm Door

Hot on the heels of the revelation of the last Mystery Photo; uncovering the Festival balloon - and a new community garden - in Oxford Street, Newtown; comes this week's challenge.

Where, in very urban Newtown, is this distinctly rural looking door ?

Cycling to and from Newtown I - Going West

In the previous post; I made some general observations about the state of cycle paths in Sydney and some of the issues with the current approach to planning and building cycleways. In the next few posts I'm going to focus on current and planned cycleways in and around Newtown, starting with the route from Newtown to Stanmore and further west.


View Larger Map

The route from Newtown to Stanmore is at least fairly well marked; known as L2 in the Marrickville council labelling scheme; this path flows up Mary Street, through the park then down Albermarle Street before turning at Baltic Street, past the Scientology School then down to the Liberty Road roundabout.

Sign on the return leg at the entry to the park

The Albermarle Street leg of this route is particularly problematic; a theoretically two way road not wide enough for even a car and bike to pass; it's also crossed with stop signs every second block; with limited visibility at intersections this is not conducive to smooth or safe cycling.


The alternative Bedford Street route is more spacious and has fewer stops; however it is more trafficked; and getting to it involves negotiating King Street at the dangerous Newtown Bridge. The solution for me is to make Albermarle Street one way with contra-flows and remove parking from one side of the road. To avoid it turning into a car rat-run; the one way system should change direction half way (say at Chelmsford Street) i.e. one way west from Australia Street to Chelmsford Street then one way West from Bedford Street.

Going further west (with an ultimate destination of Homebush for example) is another story. The marked 'L2' cycle path peters out after the railway line hugging laneway parallel to Douglas St - and for good reason, as the options are not much chop. Some guides recommend a complicated set of zig-zags all the way back to Parramatta Road; twice. This would also appear to be what the OpenStreetMap path is recommending; although it's noteworthy that L5 apparently just disappears somewhere in the vicinity of the Cockatoo Hotel.


View Larger Map

More seasoned riders (such as the Mayor) bite the bullet and take their chances on the narrow and busy Trafalgar Street and Railway Parade rather than the 10 minute detour, but it's not for everyone. The Sydney University guide, reproducing the Bike It map, suggests a split between that way going east; and a slight detour via Brighton Street cycling west.

This gap in the network really needs to be addressed if the government are serious in their commuting targets; if you agree please take the time to comment on the 'Missing Links' link below !

The next post will address cycling north towards the city; in the mean time here are a few more links for you:

• Massbug link to cycling routes; including the OpenStreetMap project.
• bikely link for Newtown routes.
• NSW Bike Plan update
• Feedback on missing links to NSW Government (bloody hell - removed a day after posting)
  
• Sydney University cycling page
• Australian Cyclist magazine
• Sydney Cyclist forums
  

Mystery Photo VIII Revealed - Lost Balloon

The most recent Mystery Photo asked you to identify the location of the Sydney Festival yellow balloon. It wasn't too long until 'anonymous' (please leave a name; even a made up on - it's much more fun !) picked it as the empty block of land next to the Scientology School on Oxford St Newtown.


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Since the photo was taken last year, the long abandoned site has undergone quite a change, and it looks like some sort of community garden is coming to life here; a quick google check reveals that's the case (via an Athena newsletter). Does anyone have any more information ?


Although the area where the ball was is still looking pretty crappy.