On the southeast corner of Pitt and Goulburn Sts, you can see the growth of high rise apartment living, until 20 years ago virtually unknown in Sydney. The Victorian building in the centre contains refurbished apartments, and the art deco building on the corner is the Chinese Mandarin Club, once a notorious den of illegal gambling, before the days of legalised casinos and pub gambling. The building with the peeling paint was also a cheap hotel, and is now a backpacker hostel.
The southwest corner has a fairly low-rise building dating from 1908, and one I would guess from the 1930s. It includes a cheap hotel (now backpackers, second-hand books and record store and nightclub.
On the northwest corner is the tower of a huge residential, office and retail and food court development, World Square.
I wonder how much long the backpacker hostels, cheap hotels and lower-rent retail will remain in this part of the city?
The southwest corner has a fairly low-rise building dating from 1908, and one I would guess from the 1930s. It includes a cheap hotel (now backpackers, second-hand books and record store and nightclub.
On the northwest corner is the tower of a huge residential, office and retail and food court development, World Square.
I wonder how much long the backpacker hostels, cheap hotels and lower-rent retail will remain in this part of the city?
Sydney is changing so quickly it seems. Is it taking itself too seriously?
ReplyDeleteMoney talks, unfortunatley. On the othe rhand, the World Trade block was a hole in the ground for about a decade (Alan Bond owned it at one stage) so I guess it's not always that fast!)
ReplyDeleteAll cities, or should I say developers, have an eye on potential hotspots. No way to get around it. Sally,I'm alway open for new ideas; in this case WINE (Mexico has terrible white wine, and as soon as I got home, I started to stock up)--one of our local liquor stores sold me a bottle of Pinot Grigo from Australia: Yellow Tale label--are you familiar with it? I like the label!! Tastes pretty good too!
ReplyDeleteNo,Kate, I have never heard of it. So I googled it; appears it is a wine made and designed specifically for export to the US.
ReplyDeleteI googled it, and came up with this fascinating article:
http://www.winestate.com.au/magazine/article.asp?articleno=290
There's lots of good Aussie wines, but mostly these days I drink "cleanskins", which are no-name wines bottled from surplus vintage in various wine growing areas. Cheap, and up til now great quality. But could decline as this year's vintage is way down, due to both frost and drought!
Look so New York-ish
ReplyDeletecela va vite à Sydney. interressant de voir l'evolution de l'architecture. merci pour ce post
ReplyDeletethat goes quickly to Sydney. interesting to see the evolution of architecture. thank you for this post
Hey Sally,
ReplyDeleteYour picture suddenly looks so so so familiar!
The pinkish building behind the peeling yellow building, that's where I lived for 2 weeks!
Friend owns a unit on this Pitt St apartment, and I stayed in their spare room.
all the news about coles, has it been sold?
Wonderfully captured shots of the buidings & I also liked the driving guy in the second shot...very well taken shots:)
ReplyDeletegood for the shoestring budget traveller!
ReplyDeleteSally, I read the article you linked on Yellow Tail wine. What a wonderful success story. I like it and think I'll continue buying it!!
ReplyDeleteVisiting Auckland I was amazed to see that the Backpackers were still very much in the heart of the CBD, whereas in Sydney they've already been pushed out towards Central station... a move likely to continue, as you rightly point out.
ReplyDeleteWe love developers, don't we?
Yes, Nathalie, it's only a matter of time. The older hotels now used as backpackers are clustered round there as a remnant of the days when more people travelled by train - people from interstate and regional towns coming to Sydney. There was hardly any hotel (or other!) life in the business area of the city further north. And not that long ago! Well, in my memory, anyway ;-)
ReplyDelete