Know my name

March and April 2021

By March I was mainly hunting for street names. My exhibition was going to open on 17th April at Articulate project space in Leichhardt. Over the months of working on the project, I became more and more aware that the accumulation of female street names is a powerful statement as such. This had to manifest itself visually in the exhibition. I had mostly taken photos of the things I encountered in the streets and the signs just occasionally. It was only a few weeks ago that I realised I needed many more of those. I visited Penrith and Fairfield, Chester Hill, and Greenacre to name a few because there are clusters of female names in these suburbs. I think they were just taken out of the hat to name the many new streets in the sprawling residential developments over the last 30 years or so.

Streets named in the 19th century mostly refer to Colonial interests. Elizabeth Street which goes from the CBD to Zetland is named after the first wife of Governor Macquarie. Many of the countless Victoria roads and streets in Sydney would have been named after Queen Victoria, among them the one in Marrickville. There was a push from the Inner West Council last year to rename such streets with Aboriginal names.

But apart from Victoria and a few princesses, the naming of the older streets took place on a more domestic level. From what I could find in the online history archives, they were named after relatives of early property developers. One of them was Joshua Josephson, the son of a convict, who became a musician, a solicitor and the Mayor of Sydney at some stage. In Newtown, many streets were named after his daughters, his stepsister and his brother’s wife.

I found only one street with a first and a surname: Lilian Fowler Place in Marrickville. She was Australia’s first female mayor, serving as the mayor of Newton from 1937 to 1939. It seemed to show that Sydney doesn’t acknowledge the achievement of women in their naming of places. A historian pointed out later that some women may be mentioned only by their surname. But this is a half-hearted homage. Who would know that Lawson Avenue in Marrickville is named after Louisa Lawson? A poet, writer and feminist and the mother of Henry Lawson. But this is an entirely different area of research. Instead, I took the liberty to claim some of the street names as female, when they might have been someone’s surname, a flower or a place.

For the exhibition, I installed rows of photos with street signs running along the gallery walls like roads. Another part was to put a second set of photos into alphabetically labelled boxes. Visitors were encouraged to look for their name or for any woman’s name who has a meaning to them and take the photo home.

Ruby and Harriett

Harriett and Ruby St, Marrickville on Wednesday, 17 March 2021

Ruby and Harriett are neighbours. In between is an industrial strip of Carrington Road. While Harriett is a rather unassuming, residential street, Ruby has an unusual feature. The street has a higher and a lower part which is divided by an old sandstone wall. Above runs a path that reminds me very much of places I have seen in France. It feels like being in a village.

Alfreda on the beach

Alfreda Street, Coogee on Tuesday, 9 March 2021

Alfreda goes down to the ocean. Everything is geared toward beach life. It has holiday flats, a shop for diving equipment and a busy parking officer. He slipped into my photo unnoticed when I took a shot of the buildings.

Finding Buddha

Blacktown/Seven Hills/Toongabbie on Sunday, 28 February 2021

A hot Sunday that I could be spending at the beach, but instead I’m street name hunting in Western Sydney. I have come to that stage where I’m more or less ticking off streets to add to the long list of female names as this is now going to be a part of my exhibition in April. I left quite early to be able to be back by lunchtime for other things. I ended up spending the whole day in the Blacktown area.

I start with Jane Street which is near the railway line at the backside of Blacktown College. There are some industrial estates behind high fences, among them the ‘Mortuary Embalming & Funeral Services’. Someone is sitting in their car with a running engine for the air conditioning and playing with their phone or maybe reading. Another car arrives and parks. Why do I think a group of tough guys will get out of the car? It’s only a young couple. Maybe they live in the nearby flats. I can’t see any shops. I must be on the wrong side of the track.

Blacktown has a long list of female names and I follow them strategically, identifying on the map where the clusters of these streets are. It never takes me to the centre of Blacktown but leads me to find more names in Seven Hills. On the way, I encounter a Buddha painting in Robina Street, next to a discarded bathtub.

And suddenly I’m in Toongabbie because of Cornelia Road. That’s the name of a friend. This area features names from ancient Rome. The main shopping strip seems to be in Aurelia Street, near the train station. There are mainly Indian shops. In Claudia Road, unexpectedly in the middle of suburbia, is a small shopping centre in a country town style. There is an IGA store and a Pizzeria with lots of people sitting outside and having lunch. It has a nice feel to it. At the corner of Valda Street, a group of old people sit together on the front verandah. An elderly couple, dressed in black, just left from there. I imagine it to be a wake.

The fence at the end of the world

Emma Street, Leichhardt on Sunday, 14 February 2021

I have noticed Emma Street a while ago. At the upper end, it feels to me like stepping into a surreal film setting. The world seemingly ends here at a wooden fence, just as the German folk saying went when I was a child. This part of Leichhardt is on a hill before the land slopes down into a valley, so that from a certain angle you only see blue sky above the fence. The deserted colonial house with its verandah on stilts contributes to the bizarre scene.

Succulents and Pomegranates

Alexandra Road, Glebe on Monday, 1 February 2021

Alexandra goes down to Jubilee Park at the bay. People grow their hobby plants in the front gardens. It’s a hot day. A chubby young man in pink shorts and a fancy hat is walking on the footpath and singing very loudly to himself. He has earphones on and he’s singing along with a song, completely out of tune.

Frog Hollow

Ann Street, Surry Hills on Saturday, 16 January 2021

I am back in Ann Street after that time in March last year in the middle of the first lockdown, when I didn’t dare to get out of the car. It’s a sunny Saturday. There are not many people and not many cars, and plenty of parking spots. But when I turn around the corner into Commonwealth Street I see lots of young people queuing up for something. I’m curious but I don't go nearer to ask. We just recently had a new outbreak in the Northern Beaches and now have to wear masks in a crowd. And people don’t like to talk to strangers anymore.

The quiet street bathed in sunlight, containing the heat between the buildings, makes it hard to imagine the surroundings 100 years ago. Now, most of the small terraces are neat, with security grills and nicely painted doors and geraniums flowering on balconies. Only the imagination can strip this away and go back to the times when Frog Hollow was the most horrible slum in Surry Hills from about 1900 to 1925 and even later.

Ann Street bordered Frog Hollow on the lower side. Originally there was a creek and swampy ground. Although not suited for housing, the gully was developed by greedy speculators. The houses were dark, damp and overcrowded and only accessible by steep stairs with poorly lit, narrow laneways.

It was home or headquarters for many gangsters, one of them Samuel ‘Jewey’ Freeman, the leader of the Riley Street Gang. Kate Leigh became his lover in 1913, then a thief and prostitute who would later rule the crime scene of Sydney together with her rival Tilly Devine.

Frog Hollow is now a park. The old stairs, leading down from Riley and Albion Street, are still there.

Cecilia

Cecilia Street, Marrickville on Tuesday, 5 January 2021

From the corner of Cecilia Street, the view goes to the Marrickville Town Hall and a winged goddess on a pedestal in front.

The street is a cul-de-sac, ending with a block of units. It looks almost like a gated community. There are two long rows of garbage bins lined up on the side of the footpath. A young man comes out from the property, rolling a bin to join the others. He’s wearing a mask and a turban and looks suspiciously at me. I don’t know why as I haven’t even taken any photos yet. I think it’s this aimless, slow walking and looking around, this loitering in a place without an apparent purpose that is suspicious. I turn around but observe that he is appearing again and again, one bin at a time. A tedious job.

Caroline

Caroline Lane, St Peters on Friday, 4 December 2020

Caroline runs parallel to May Street and has a lot of graffiti. It’s a backside alley lined with fences and factories. There is a gym and a poster printer. A broken model of an 18th-century ship is dumped outside one of the garage doors. Maybe it’s meant to be the HMS Endeavour?

A sketchy, black-and-white Spiderman rises above a geometrical graffiti. A paper sign says “Do not paint here”. At the corner of May Lane is a mural by Reubszz. When I look around towards St Peters station I see a construction site, a high building, almost finished. Just there I took a photo of a grey old house many years ago.

It’s hot today. What am I doing here?

A lane with a name

Marys Place, Surry Hills on Sunday, 15 November 2020

Marys Place has been renamed from Floods Lane to commemorate the woman who was raped and beaten here in 1996. There is a memorial inscription on the wall to raise awareness against homophobic violence.

At one end of Marys Place a church steeple is visible through Jacaranda trees. People have gathered on the grounds of the church, standing around in groups and holding wine glasses.

On this side of the fence, somebody has made a Christmas decoration with a tinsel wound around the remains of a vacuum cleaner next to a sign saying ‘Dumping of Litter, Penalty $200’.

Whispers

Charlotte Lane, Darlinghurst on Saturday, 14 November

Some streets or lanes give me a special tingle. The walls whisper. It’s not just because they have features of the past. In this case, a row of brick and sandstone houses are from an earlier time than the usual Victorian terrace. What I see in my mind’s eye are not the old Colonial times but the early 20th Century. Crammed life in narrow streets, small corner shops, men with hats, ragged-looking children, no trees, no flower pots.

Darlinghurst was the domain of gangster boss Tilly Devine. I look up the history and specifically search for Charlotte Lane. In this lane, the founder of the first Razor Gang, Norman Bruhn, was shot dead outside Mac’s sly-grog and cocaine den in 1927. Bruhn had come from Melbourne and thought that it was ridiculous that Sydney’s crime world was run by two women, the other being Kate Leigh. Serves him right. It is said that this killing was executed by one of Tilly’s gang, Frankie Green. But there are other possibilities, one being the owner of the den, Joe McNamara, who had been robbed by Bruhn and his mates sometime earlier.

This end of Darlinghurst struggles against the bullies from the city. The high buildings of College Street tower over old Charlotte Lane.

Ivy

Ivy Street and Lane, Darlington on Sunday, 8 November 2020

First I walk along Ivy Street which has mainly Victorian terraces and big, old eucalyptus trees.

This suburb still seems to have the Council waste collection day for household items which the neighbouring Redfern has not to my great regret. I am tempted to take a discarded little footstool with me. I am also tempted to bring some of my own unwanted household goods here. But I resist both temptations.

Across Abercrombie Street, Ivy Street is dominated by the large warehouse which used to have offices and now flats. I had an encounter with this part of Ivy Street, when I did my ‘Night Cruise’ project, photographing the building through raindrops on the windshield of my car.

Ivy Lane is divided by Lawson and Abercrombie Street, merging here with the Glengarry Castle Hotel at the corner. People walk slowly, getting coffee from the shops, stopping for a chat. The area feels like a secluded neighbourhood this Sunday afternoon. Not like the busy thoroughfare it is during the week between Redfern Station and the nearby university.

Ghost Signs

Rose Lane, Darlington on Sunday, 8 November 2020

I had forgotten to look for Rose Lane after I found out a few months ago that Rose Street doesn’t exist anymore in Darlington.

I came past it recently by coincidence. It is a very small lane with an old brick factory building on one side. Through the wire mesh windows, I can see a courtyard with trees and plants. Some parts of the windows still have dusty, old pieces of frosted glass. Through one of them, I suddenly recognise the head of a female mannequin. It looks eerie, a bit like a person trapped in a cage.

People live in this building. Around the corner are two doors in bright colours. There still is the name of the factory in faded letters. Only a few of them are recognisable. A young woman with two little children has just arrived at one of the doors and is ringing the bell. It’s an old-fashioned one where you turn a metal knob, like winding up a clock.

On the other side of the lane is the Darlington Activity Club, a low brick building with tin rubbish bins in the courtyard. Looking across from here is another lane with yet another former factory at the corner. Here I can read quite clearly that it was called Blue Diamond and has a pale blue triangle painted on the brickwork.

Neighbourhood Watch

Flora Street, Mascot on Friday, 6 November 2020

There is nothing remarkable in this street. At the end of its cul-de-sac, a woman is unloading shopping bags from her SUV, taking them inside a house. An elderly couple is watching. Then she gets into her car to leave, greeting me in a friendly fashion as I walk by.

Something looks interesting about that tucked-away property. When I think she is already far away, I return. But no, she comes driving back and asks me why I am taking photos. I have to think fast. “Art project” doesn’t sound right this time. I say that I research architecture and record the different styles of houses - nothing about the people. She thought I was here on behalf of a neighbour’s grievance. In other words, they must have done something to cause a grievance to a neighbour. People who are suspicious of photographers always seem to have some agenda. 

Daphne, Rose, Ivy Street, Botany

In Daphne Street, they are building a row of new townhouses. One has a white Madonna and Child near the front steps. I walk past a few remnants of industry. A rustic-looking house contains Redelman Fabrics. In a front yard sits a container labelled ‘Hapag-Lloyd’, the North German shipping company I worked for in Hamburg many decades ago.

A huge empty lot alongside Rose Street is being prepared for the construction of yet another apartment block. I like how it looks at the moment. Hard to explain why. Maybe because of the white soil, or because it shows a side of places that were hidden for a long time. 

In Ivy Street are a preschool and a sewage pumping station. Builders are making a lot of noise in a house next door. Children are coming home from school.

Ethel

Ethel Street and Lane, Eastwood on Thursday, 5 November 2020

Ethel Street features mainly uniform-looking apartment blocks made of dark red brick. There used to be brickworks in Eastwood which explains the prevalence of this building material.

It’s raining heavily today and it’s cold. I had my doubts about even coming here but I was in the neighbourhood after having stayed with a friend in Dundas Valley. 

At the end of the street towards the railway tracks are a few shops, and a Korean grocery store at the corner. Fruit and vegetables are on display outside in boxes with handwritten labels above them. One says “Please DO NOT eat fruits on display”. This seems funny to me as it is above a box with pineapples. 

On the other side is a long, pale yellow building with a pub and a few shops, some empty. “First Fortune”, whatever it once promised, is no more. I venture out into the rain and into Ethel Lane, which looks sinister with its dark brick walls under the heavy clouds. A psychiatrist and a psychologist share premises. You enter through a narrow door under a tattered and faded canopy - rather what I’d imagine being the entrance of a cheap brothel.

It's really great to see you again

Frances Street, Randwick on Friday, 30 October 2020

Frances is one of the more majestic streets in Randwick. At the corner to Avoca Street is the old building of the Town Hall and on the other side the St Jude Anglican Church with its historic cemetery. I like that they let the grass and wildflowers grow high between the graves. The cemetery closes at 4 p.m., in 5 minutes, so I am a bit nervous about venturing too far in. For that reason, I didn’t inspect the newer-looking statue of three girls, which I saw from the street through the fence.

A bit further down is a park with a trampled lawn where people sit with their children after picking them up from school. There are a few mansions in this street. One is now a convention centre. Jacaranda trees are in blossom. The sky doesn’t know whether to be dark or friendly. Bus stops now display encouraging slogans: “Hello. It’s really great to see you again.” During lockdown other signs read: “Ask, are you ok?”

Several generations

Elizabeth Street and Lane, Lee Street, Ivy Street and Lane, Randwick on Thursday, 29 October 2020

Elizabeth Street has a music school. The sign reads “Music Is What Feelings Sound Like”. Two young women are loading lots of bottles of alcohol into a car parked out front.

Several generations of architecture come together in this street. Art Deco, 50’s style, Victorian, 21st century. A former garage has become a second-hand clothes shop.

Elizabeth Lane offers views of backyards, and a bit of urban grunge. 

Lee Street is on a hill with a view of the city. The area looks a bit like a country town with its unpaved lanes and grassy footpaths. There is a wooden gangway to one of the houses, like a bridge over a creek. Another house is bordered by a low, ancient-looking stone wall.

Sunlight shimmers through the leaves of Acacia trees.

Ivy Street

Ivy Lane

Rosemary's Windows

Crystal Street and Crystal Lane West, Petersham on Wednesday, 21 October 2020

Crystal Lane West has an old factory building which is now something fancy. A luxury car is just driving into the garage. It also has a 30s-style block of flats with a paved small courtyard, outdoor laundry, and washing lines. Some elaborate graffiti marks this lane, one with a huge mosquito. When I try to find out later if the mosquito is a logo for a particular graffiti artist, I come across this history: “Mosquito” was the name of an RAF combat aircraft also used by the Australian Air Force. On 2nd May 1945, one of these fighter planes disintegrated above Petersham. The pilots couldn’t save themselves as they were not high enough for their parachutes to open. One of the pilots landed tragically in the playground of the Petersham Public School. I wonder if the graffiti of the mosquito recalls this local event or if it’s an amazing coincidence.

I pass a car repair shop at the corner of Crystal Street. The wall bordering the yard shows a Bushell “ghost sign”, a remnant of a past commercial era. This section of the street has some empty shops. Among them, a harpsichord shop with a rusty banner alongside the awning, and a store that once sold Jackson cigarettes and Toblerone chocolate as the blue panels below the barred windows tell me. On the wall, a newer poster demands ‘Immediately Housing for the Homeless’. Mmh, good cause, but bad grammar. A bit further along is a Metropolitan Community Church with the LGBTQIA+ flag flying on its roof. On the other side is John While & Sons, “spring manufacturers established 1885”, now an apartment block. There are more small shops on that side; one identifies as an op shop by its display of secondhand clothes and knick-knacks visible behind the dark windows. This shop and all the others nearby are closed until further notice. 

Crystal Street, Petersham on Thursday, 7 January 2021

Today I start at the part of Crystal Street, where I once worked for the photo media artist Rosemary Laing in 2006/07. She had her live-in studio in an old, unconverted warehouse. It was very cold in winter there, in spite of portable heaters, hot cups of tea and ginger biscuits. The main entrance was in the courtyard. She eventually moved away, but the building remains the same, maybe still empty, the window frames unpainted. At the back of the yard is a workshop of some kind; a bathtub with plants outside the low building. The UGG sheepskin shop flanks the other side of the yard. At the street level are two empty shops. One still features faded posters and notes in the window: Sydney Folk Festival, Gulgong Folk Festival, ‘Rorts and Greed: Killing our Rivers’.

Back when I worked at Rosemary’s, the Hell’s Angels had leased or bought one of these shops for their clubhouse. They painted it red and fortified it with iron bars and security cameras. But this couldn’t stop a bomb from going off one night in June 2007, damaging the door and wall tiles. They moved out soon after that. 

On the other side of the road the dog-grooming shop ‘Wagging Tail’, which I could see from the room I worked in, now seems to have closed down. Crystal Street has a sign saying “Welcome to Cadigal-Wangal Country”. I don’t know if it was there before, or if I’m more aware of Aboriginal Country now.

A bit further along is the op shop which was closed when I passed by in October 2020. Now, three months later, dummies in colourful clothes are on display in the street outside. Further down is the Art Deco-style Petersham Town Hall. I learn from the internet that it has been a popular film location for movies and TV series such as ‘Strictly Ballroom’ and ‘A Place to Call Home’. 

Towards Stanmore Road opposite the Oxford Tavern is a Federation-style residential building with decorative green and cream timber features, and tiling on the entry paths. One section of it looks neglected. That part seems to be used as a boarding house. Another looks freshly renovated with shiny new street numbers.

Chelsea and Zamia

Chelsea and Zamia Street, Redfern on Monday, 19 October 2020

On the corner of Chelsea Street are the ‘Little Evie’ café and deli. This street has some very pretty houses, some of them timber cottages. One building is grey and quite neglected. It must have been a warehouse recognisable from the loading beam. The window underneath is bricked up. There is another neglected warehouse and a Victorian terrace, apparently also empty, with trees and vines taking over. Chelsea Lodge is a 60s yellow brick block and advertises a flat for lease. As I walk along on one side of the street, I pass a school girl, about 10 years old who is wearing magenta-coloured leg warmers. When I go back on the other side, she comes towards me again. 

I have taken photos in Zamia Street before around 2005. I can’t find the spot where I photographed the public housing buildings through bougainvillea blossoms. But the blocks are still there, looming against dark clouds. These are the ones belonging to the complex built in the 1970s with a utopian vision and now threatened to be demolished. The development plans were already made public a few years ago. It is unclear yet what is going to happen.

Further down the street is a shed-like construction that seemed to be made entirely out of rusty corrugated-iron panels. That’s what I thought back then. But it is a solid house and a family is apparently living there. I hear the voices of children from behind the fenced-in yard.

Strangely, the girl with the magenta leg warmers is with me again, this time accompanied by another girl and a woman. They all get into a car. The two streets are not even so close to each other. I feel like a stalker.

Both Chelsea and Zamia have a playground that is full of children and adults, real neighbourhood meeting points. If you have small children…

Where glass was made

Crystal Street, Waterloo on Monday, 19 October 2020

This is a new street in the big apartment complex which was built on the grounds of the former Australian Glass Manufacturers. It’s more than a complex, almost a suburb in itself with its own streets, parks and shopping centres. The first development started around 2003 and it has continuously grown since then.

I pass the slick facade of the ‘Orange Supermarket’, an Asian grocery store. The interior manages to look as if it is in an old Asian quarter and the prices are low. In the middle of the street is a small park with a water basin from which fountains of water emerge and benches are on each side. People are sitting and reading or having lunch or enjoying the water display. The trees are already quite high and give shade. There are lots of cafés and restaurants and more benches and palm trees lining the street in the pedestrian part. People sit around, meeting for a chat. It’s really quite nice here, even though I don’t like the buildings. At the end of the street is Coles Supermarket.