Millers Point is in the news lately for a lot of wrong reasons. But back in the day, Barney Gardner recalls, cab drivers would start across the bridge to Milsons Point before he’d call “Whoah!” and throw the driver a few bob, jump out and cut across Observatory Hill to his High Street home.
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| A Millers Point residence expresses pride and defiance (Photo: Geoff Turnbull) |
The terraces of High Street were built to house wharfies. Today the memory of the wharves is being buried by earth-moving machinery making mounds and stacking sandstone to approximate a pre-invasion foreshore. The future promises sunsets over eucalypt-packed parkland.
But Barney and his friends and neighbours will be somewhere else by then, unless the government is thwarted. According to NSW Finance Minister, Greg Pearce: “The Land and Housing Corporation’s portfolio at Millers Point is poorly suited for social housing, being heritage-listed older houses, which cannot be modified to meet modern requirements.”
National Trust Advocacy Director, Graham Quint, says the area’s heritage value and its people have been ignored. “The area’s twice been listed. Now the second State Heritage listing specifically spoke about the social history and these people who are about to be evicted.”
Before World War I, this knob of land north of the city was a blighted place, a plaguey dockside slum. Between the wars it was the centre of an industrial harbour, bustling beneath the Bridge that opened in 1932. Public housing predominated. There was a stigma.
Barney remembers his daughter being snubbed by a Dover Heights school friend. Now her shameful suburb is a pot of gold. According to Pru Goward, Minister for Family and Community Services: “For the price of every terrace house sold under the previous government, we could build about four new suitable public housing dwellings.”
Professor Peter Phibbs, University of Sydney, declares Goward “seems to be the Minister for real estate, and not actually thinking about the needs of the tenants down there”.
The Minister cites the 57,000 people on public housing waiting lists and asserts these assets must be sold “despite the short-term anguish it may cause”.
“This sell-off amounts to the destruction of a community. It will cause hardship and grief to the people of Millers Point”, counters Dr Chris Martin, Senior Policy Officer for the Tenants’ Union of NSW.
In mid June, the privately owned Munn Street offices adjoining North Barangaroo went up for sale. A price around $40 million is expected. “Inner-city properties like these are now being seen in a new light,” said James Parry of Knight Frank. “They can be converted into a hotel to cater for the overflow from Crown and also the new huge number of office workers that will be in the area.”
In 1999, Millers Point was declared a Conservation Area. In 2003 Millers Point and Dawes Point were placed on the State Heritage Register. It is a yuppy dream that private buyers revive these glorious dwellings appropriately. But many of the 200 historic terraces may be sold in blocks to building companies and the sorry story is that heritage is routinely trumped when the minister deems a development to be a State Significant Site.
Before too long, treat yourself to a sunny afternoon, strolling the time-capsule streets the other side of the Argyle Cut. Chance into any one of the sandstone pubs claiming to be Australia’s first hotel. Yarn with the locals. But do it soon, before it’s gone.
Reference from: http://www.southsydneyherald.com.au/millers-point-lament/#.U7ksx8-KDIU
