Darlinghurst: Detritus: Electrical Substation Flyer

This flyer was posted in the window of the newly relocated Bill Warner Chemist on the corner of Victoria and Surrey streets.

Energy Australia are hoping to install new kiosk substations in the area to cater to the increased demand for power, and obviously some people aren't happy about it.

The kiosk mentioned in the flyer above is set to be installed on Surrey Street, just outside Dr Warner's shop door.

Energy Australia says it will result in the loss of one car space, but that a nearby Plane tree will be unaffected. Save the car space, saw down the tree, I say.

The kiosk is rather big (about 2.7m long, 1.5m wide and 1.6m high) and not all that pretty but I don't really understand the fuss Dr Warner is making - especially when he keeps his shop lights on all night.

It also appears that the Surrey Street location is an alternative to Energy Australia's original and foolish plan to place the kiosk within the grounds of St John's Church across the road, which was opposed by the Darlinghurst Residents Action Group in August.

Darlinghurst: Plant Life: Plane Trees

To most people this tree appears harmless, some might even say it looks beautiful, but for me, and thousands of other Sydney-siders, the Plane tree is evil.

The London Plane tree, or Platanus x Hispanica as it's known to horticultural geeks, is a deciduous tree that grows to 30-50m in height and is native to the northern hemisphere.

Because of its drought tolerance and hardiness in harsh urban environments the City of Sydney Council decided it would be a fine idea to plant hundreds of the bastards around Darlinghurst, Potts Point and Surry Hills. And they continue to do so.

When I see Plane tree saplings, newly planted in the area and propped up with wooden stakes - like this recent arrival on Craigend Street - I have the urge to snap their trunks.

How does a tree inspire such hatred?

Because every year around September, the Plane trees decide to dump their load of pollen and hair into the atmosphere, creating a war-zone for allergy sufferers.

After inflicting their initial damage, the pollen and fine yellow hairs then hide in crevices, gutters and footpaths laying in wait for stray wind gusts to launch them back into the atmosphere for further lethal missions:

This goes on for about two months, maybe three, and despite managing to avoid their deadly assaults this year, today I wasn't so lucky.

I had just left home and was walking along Darlinghurst Road in Kings Cross, on my way to a lunch date and in high spirits when, without warning, they attacked. On what was a supposedly fine day, a cruel wind gust, loaded with Plane tree ammunition, launched itself towards me. There was no time to duck for cover before it struck me in the face and along my body. It was like being shot at by a pellet gun. Then, just as quickly as it arrived, the wind and its nasty master disappeared around the corner down Roslyn Street.

The effects were felt immediately. First I tried to pluck the dust from my eyes, then my nose became clogged, my throat felt sore and my arms and legs grew itchy.

Over lunch, I continued to rub my eyes, blow my nose and drink lots of water to calm my throat, but the symptoms did not abate. It didn't matter what I did, because the pollen was in my hair too. Then it brought upon a headache.

It is only now, hours later, and since I have returned home, had a shower and shampooed my hair, that I am starting to feel clean again, and a little better.

I'm having a beer too, in a bid to lift my mood.

This year the Plane trees also dust-bombed my car, infecting the glove-box and boot, despite the windows and doors being shut tight. That time I had a friend clean the dust out for me, so I could take her on a drive, but I worry about when the next attack will occur.

I worry too about the people who are actually allergic to the trees, because strangely, I am not.

About four years ago I was at Kings Cross Markets (located right near the Macleay Street Plane tree district in the photograph above) and there was a little desk with a sign that said, Free Plane Tree Allergy Testing. The testing was being undertaken by Euan Tovey of the Woolcock Institute of Medical Research in a bid to find allergy sufferers to take part in an 18-month study.

I wasn't really interested in becoming a guinea pig because it involved clipping a nasal sampler inside one's nose to catch dust and pollen particles.

But I was keen to know if I was allergic to the dreaded Plane tree. And as it turned out, I wasn't. Dr Tovey said I merely suffered from Plane tree irritation.

But I already knew that.

So if I have such a terrible reaction to Plane tree pollen, just imagine what life in Spring is like for true allergy sufferers.

Yet the City of Sydney Council continues to plant Plane trees and appears to be in denial about their public health risks, posting this on their website:

''In response to some residents raising concerns about the allergenic properties of Plane Trees, Council has received independent advice from medical and horticultural experts, including allergy specialists. Allergy experts at Royal North Shore and Concord Hospitals have advised that Plane Trees are not generally recognised by either of their allergy clinics as a particular problem.''

When the City of Sydney Council invested dollars in a beautification of William Street in 2005, their plans included an avenue of Plane trees, prompting University of NSW Professor Mike Archer, Director of the Australian Museum and Dean of Science at the University of NSW, to declare the idea ''disastrous''.

"It's like putting in rabbits and saying they're pretty,'' Prof Archer told the Sydney Morning Herald.

"It's like planting brick statues. Nothing eats them, no native birds go to them.''

The Asthma Foundation also opposed the council's plans but the Plane trees went in regardless:

Gardening Australia devotes a page on its website to Plane tree allergies and highlights their risk to public health. Wisely, Gardening Australia's Jerry Coleby-Williams also lists half a dozen or so native trees (the Plane tree is not indigenous) that have proven successful in urban environments, but which don't cause allergies or irritation. City of Sydney Council take note: these trees include the Illawarra Flame, Blueberry Ash, Water Gum and Broad-Leaved Paperbark.

The Gardening Australia page also contains this interesting point:

''Plane tree pollinosis sufferers can also develop food allergies. Once the immune system is activated by Plane tree pollen it will recognise similar plant proteins in foodstuffs.

Hazelnuts and celery have similar proteins in them, and so eating these foods can also cause an allergic response but can happen at any time of the year.''

It's frightening stuff. And as the City of Sydney Council continues to carry on planting in ignorance, I can only recommend allergy sufferers follow the techniques used in the following instructional video:

And if that YouTube link doesn't work, click here to learn How to Kill a Tree in 15 Minutes.

Darlinghurst: Heritage Items: Darlinghurst Public School

Darlinghurst Public School

- Register of the National Estate, City of Sydney Council Heritage List

Within the grounds of Darlinghurst Public School, near the old lunch bell, is a stone embedded in the ground, carved with 1883 - the year that construction began on this Victorian Romanesque-style building at 350 Liverpool Street.

Darlinghurst Public was one of three schools designed by Charles Mayes (Forest Lodge PS, near Glebe, and Double Bay PS, in Sydney's east, were the other two) during a boom time of government school construction, following the introduction of the Public Institution Act in 1880.

The act made attendance at school compulsory for the first time and introduced the structure of Superior Public Schools, High Schools and Evening Public Schools.

The schools built during this period were designed to demonstrate the supremacy of state education over denominational education and Darlinghurst Public School was an example of this.

The two-storey school building was officially opened by Minister for Education and Member for Darlinghurst George Reid in 1884, and by 1931 the school had over 1200 enrolments.

Additional two-storey, inter-war buildings were added to the grounds in the 1920s.

Between 1939 and 1942 the school was the first in the state to provide special education for migrants, most of whom were German refugees.

Today the school has only 173 pupils, showing just how different the suburb is from the early 20th Century, when there were probably a lot more children living in the area.

If I ever have children I imagine I will send them to Darlinghurst Public but the one drawback is the large Plane trees, which are spotted throughout the site and whose Spring pollen is a major irritant. I think any child of mine will have to take themselves to school during those months.

*

Darlinghurst Public School

350 Liverpool Street

Darlinghurst NSW 2010

02 9331 4295

www.darlinghur-p.schools.nsw.edu.au

Darlinghurst: My Story

I first moved to Darlinghurst in 2002. I had been living in share-houses in East Redfern and Surry Hills but so desperately wanted a place of my own. The reason for selecting Darlinghurst was because it had, and still has, so many more studio apartments than Surry Hills or Redfern, which have mostly terrace houses and one- and two-bedroom apartments.

I only looked at one studio apartment in Darlinghurst and I was smitten. It was at 7/40 Hardie Street, next door to Flash Auto Repairs - run by the charming Peter - and just a skip away from the Darlo Bar, Green Park Hotel and the 311 bus stop.

The picture above is one of the few photographs I have of apartment number seven and was taken on a special day (face flowered for privacy) and here is a photograph of 40 Hardie Street (to the left) that I took the other day:

The rent for apartment number seven was $170 a week and $5 less than I was paying in the share-house. It was small but I didn't know any better. The kitchen was an afterthought, the bathroom had a sliding-door and the windows looked out to brick-walls and a light-well, but I loved it because it was my own.

The 12-room apartment building sold for $1.56 million two years after I moved in and was purchased by three young, and very clever, men (Arthur, Lans and Sava). They were good landlords and never put the rent up. One of them even kindly came to remove a huntsman spider that had made itself a home in the corner of the room above my bed.

I lived at number seven for five glorious years, hosting cosy (squashy) dinner parties for six, befriending the local cats and falling in love with the neighbourhood.

But my book and dress collection was steadily growing and it was clear I needed more space, so when the apartment next door - number eight - became available, I asked if I could have it. The following week I carried all my possessions about 2m to the place next door.

Number eight was a dream. It had beautiful windows that looked out on to Hayden Lane and to the rear of French restaurant Sel e Poivre, so that the kitchen staff's musical Gallic accents came floating up into my home. Another positive was that the apartment also had a bathtub.

Here is a picture of number eight:

I loved that apartment to death and even had it painted a gorgeous shade of yummy, rich clotted-cream before I moved in. I also installed a paper blind in the kitchen and thick-cream, light-blocking curtains in the main room. Sadly I wasn't to stay there for very long.

After just six months of living in luxury I accepted a job far, far away and in April 2007 moved out of Darlinghurst and gave up number eight for someone else.

Here is a picture of my last day at number eight, when I had to hand over the keys:

To be honest, I was actually glad to be moving out of Darlinghurst and Sydney. I was frustrated by my job and needed to move away from the stinky city I had grown to hate. I especially loathed the excessive planting of Plane trees, which shed fine, pollen-coated hairs every Spring and cause so much grief for my poor throat and nose. I was tired of hearing about rising property prices and the fact that every time I stepped out the door, life seemed to cost me $50.

So I moved to the seaside where I had ocean views, a car-space and a verandah for only $170 a week - 1990s prices!

For the first 18 months I was fine. I returned to Darlinghurst and the surrounding suburbs regularly to see my then lover-boy and other friends and it was almost as if I had never left.

Almost. After that first honeymoon phase I began to miss my old neighbourhood. I missed walking the streets at night, the noise and the characters.

There was one particular scene of the neighbourhood that I would replay in my head. It was walking home at dusk from Taylor Square and then alongside the National Art School, towards Burton Street. There would be a sense of peace about the neighbourhood as fruit bats in their thousands flew overhead from the Royal Botanic Gardens to search for their evening feast, while the city's workers also made their way home for dinner.

The strongest, most memorable image of that walk though, is of a large gothic-looking house on the corner of Forbes and Burton Streets, which would be in silhouette against the dying day. I loved that house at that time of day. It thrilled me for some reason. I'm sure I have a photograph of it somewhere too. (I was pleased to see today that the house is still there. Although it looks like the Caritas psychiatric hospital across the road is soon to be demolished to make way for a fancy apartment block - more on that another day.)

So anyway, I missed old Darlo and badly wanted to be back in number eight, as if the whole move out of Sydney had never happened.

I set about plotting my return and in September last year began looking at Darlinghurst studios and discovered that rents had gone up by $100 a week in the 2.5 years I was gone. It was sad, but there are worse things to spend your money on.

I trawled through the rental ads on Domain.com every waking hour for weeks and it was on a Saturday morning when I finally found what I was looking for. I am very picky. It had to be a 1930s-40s build, so that I would have high ceilings and none of that porridgey stuff they started spraying on ceilings in the 60s. It also had to have light: don't want to be depressed. And polished floors. A built in wardrobe (I don't want to own another piece of furniture). And a bathtub would be dandy too.

The place on Royston Street appeared to have everything. I dashed to the real estate agency as soon as they opened up shop and put in an application, which was approved by Sunday night and on Tuesday I inspected it and the keys were in my hands.

Here is a picture of Royston Street:

It is not the greatest street in Darlinghurst. One has to hike up Oporto Hill (or Vomit Hill, as it appears on Sunday mornings) to reach it, and it is surrounded by the dastardly plane trees, but it will do for now. Secretly, I still want number eight back.

Here is a picture of the view from my sunroom across the rooftops of Paddington with St Vincent's Hospital to the right:

Here is a picture of the view from my kitchen window, down to Rushcutters Bay and over to Darling Point. I can actually see the Moran family's mansion, Swifts.

Happy, happy to be home...

UPDATE: October 2011: I am now employed by the City of Sydney and feel that I should declare my interest here in case I should ever by accused of bias.
I have just left an industry that I loved for 10 years to embark on this new adventure and I am very excited about my new position at Town Hall, especially because I will be able to pop down to the City of Sydney Archives in my lunch breaks. And hopefully this can only be a good thing for my My Darling Darlinghurst.
Opinions, thoughts and adventures will remain my own and I still make no money from this blog; it has and always will be a labour of love.