still here!

Still here! But still indisposed, unfortunately. Have some fairly major league surgery scheduled for mid-January, that'll keep Vanishing Sydney off the streets of the Inner West for another three months at a minimum. Recuperating for the rest of the summer here down under the equator, but sincerely hope to be back in the cooler weather with some fresh material.

In the meantime, enjoy the back catalogue. You can find 2,800 original unique photographs of the Inner West of my beloved Emerald City - Sydney, Australia - snapped over the past four years. The best resolution is seen in the Archive Box on your million pixel desktop, or just keep scrolling back forever on your device. Explore the neighbourhood vicariously! It's disappearing fast.

Go well in 2023, find some peace, and all power to your oars.

a long hiatus - go well, folks...

Due to circumstances way beyond my control, Vanishing Sydney has been forced to go into a long hiatus until after Xmas. In the meantime, enjoy the back catalogue. You can find 2,800 original unique photographs of the Inner West of my beloved Emerald City - Sydney, Australia. The best resolution is seen in the Archive box on your desktop, or just keep scrolling back forever on your device. It contains just about every single landmark of any note in the Inner West and a helluva lot more besides. Hope to be back in 2023. The journey so far has been beyond fun; it started on a whim, but there's been so much enjoyment and fulfillment in creating an amateur photographic record of the place I've called home for the past 35 years. In the meantime, go well, folks.

It's My Party. Paintwork by Scottie Marsh. Erskineville.

Dept. of Radiation Oncology, Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (est.1882). Camperdown.

Original Nurses' Home (1890-92), Royal Prince Alfred Hospital (est.1882). Opened in 1892 with 50 rooms, extensions out the back and temporary buildings increased the number of rooms to 400 by 1936. Closed in 1956, when a new 11 storey 750 room Nurses' Home was built nearby, which itself has now been converted to University student accommodation. Now houses the hospital's Education Research facility. (Lower photo is of the original art nouveau leadlight front door). Camperdown.

Great Depression era art deco apartment building in the "P&O Style". Four identical units only. Marrickville.

Unusual former art deco church right down to the leadlight windows, built during the inter-war years. Denomination unknown. Now a child care centre. Leichhardt.

Ornate former Masonic Hall (1888). Now a substantial über-lux private residence. Rozelle.

Former late Victorian era emporium (1888). Built in the "Centenary Year" (100 years since white settlement). Prosperous times in Sydney back then during the city's first run-away real estate boom, before everything went to shit in the Panic of 1890, which resulted in an almost decade long economic depression. Boom times to hard times in the blink of an eye. Leichhardt.

Former Technological Museum (1892-3). Built as a museum to the "advance of man". Collection relocated to a nearby much larger disused power station that became known as the Powerhouse Museum in 1988. Now known as "The Muse", a café at ground level and administrative offices above. Part of the much larger original "Trade School", all now incorporated into the NSW Dept. of Technical and Further Education HQ. Heritage Listed. Ultimo.

Balmain Watch House (1854). One of the very oldest buildings still standing in the Inner West. Designed by Chief Colonial Architect Edmund Blacket and built of Sydney Sandstone. Original top storey replaced in 1881. Remained a police lock-up until 1925. Then became the home of the local Police Sergeant until 1944. Later fell into dereliction and badly damaged by fire and vandals; earmarked for demolition before being saved and restored by local community groups in the 1980's. Now an exhibition space for hire. Heritage Listed. Balmain.

A rare row of very old terrace houses with facades flush onto the street, possibly early 1870's. Chippendale.

A couple of tiny 1880's era remnant terrace houses/hovels that were somehow missed during the extensive slum clearances of the late 1940's-early 1950's. Now 'studio apartments'. Small public park at rear is where the rest of them once were. Glebe.

Former late-Victorian era wool store c.1881. Now converted to six über-lux apartments. Chippendale.

Very elaborate and well preserved original cast iron balcony railings and trim known as Sydney Lace on this terrace house - the height of fashion during the 1880's - and still widely seen in the older parts of the Inner West. Enmore.

Original cast iron & timber shop-top balcony, dated 1884. Now subdivided into two apartments. Overlooks a busy six-lane highway. Leichhardt.

Stone mason's yard. Specialising in heavy tonnage of semi-finished blocks of Sydney Sandstone, now quarried at Maroota, about 70 kilometres north-west of Sydney. The distinctive local sandstone was the 19th century building material of choice in Sydney, and there were many small quarries scattered throughout the Inner West. A thriving industry by the 1850's, they'd all been pretty much worked out before WWI. Until new sources were found, Sydney Sandstone was a rare, mostly recycled material for repairs, which weren't needed much anyway due to its extremely high durability. Still highly prized and sought after today. And still very expensive. Annandale.