Saturday, July 30, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Art Galleries: East Village Hotel: Gemma Parsons's Photos and Laughs

Dogue, by Gemma Parsons, 2011

Judging by the number of four-legged friends that visit the Kings Cross Saturday Markets each week, I'd hazard a wild guess that people in Darlinghurst love their dogs. Hugo (above) is a Weimaraner, a German dog, who lives in Leichhardt, in Sydney's inner-west with Gemma Parsons, her fiance and a Russian-blue cat called Rumpole. 
But he comes to Darlinghurst quite often, mainly to visit Mr Morris, an apricot toy poodle in the area, and to stop for a snack at the Stanley Street cafes. This Wednesday, however, Hugo is taking over the East Village Hotel, on the corner of Palmer and Liverpool streets, to party it up with Parsons and other friends and to celebrate the opening of a new photography exhibition featuring images of himself. No one said Hugo was a modest dog.

Hugo's Bach, by Gemma Parsons, 2011

Parsons, a make-up artist by trade, was raised in the darkrooms and studios of her father, a professional photographer, and that talent has rubbed off. All she needed was a muse. Photos and Laughs is an exhibition featuring a dozen or so pictures of Hugo hamming it up in various costumes and scenarios for a proposed children's book, When I Grow Up. 
According to Parsons, When I Grow Up is ''a book about dreaming. Dressing up and dreaming about growing up to become a scuba diver or maybe a doctor or a chef.''
''I think children and adults will love the images,'' Parsons told My Darling Darlinghurst.
''We hope you like the shots too and maybe, through the exhibition I might be lucky enough to meet a publisher . . . but that’s me dreaming.''
So the exhibition opens this Wednesday night, August 3, from 6pm at the East Village (below). Hugo will no doubt be available to sign autographs, while 10 per cent of all proceeds from the sale of photographs will go to the RSPCA.


But I know what you are really wondering - how on earth did Parsons manage to get Hugo to pose with that cello and bow? 
Parsons is keeping that secret to herself, but she will admit that Hugo is ''by no means an obedient dog.''
''Weimaraner’s have earned a reputation for their stubbornness and neuroses - so a few basic commands were implemented at puppy school right away,'' she said.
''He will sit, shake hands and lay down if he feels inclined . . . and more often these days will walk nicely on the lead, though this took years! 
''On set, he is a complete professional - it's as if he knows it's time to work, and takes much pride in his role.''


Copyright for all Hugo photographs belongs to Gemma Parsons.
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Gemma Parsons
Photos and Laughs
East Village Hotel
234 Palmer Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
August 3 - 31, 2011

Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Houses: 40A Caldwell Street Part Three

Remember the dunny-lane house? Back in February, Federal Court judge Dennis Cowdroy's company submitted a development application to build a house on this narrow, 2.6m wide dunny-lane off Caldwell Street:


Justice Cowdroy had purchased the 48sqm site for just $1 from a grazier, John Robison who had unknowingly inherited the title. The site - once used by dunny-men to collect residents's toilet-buckets - backs on to three Surrey Street homes and not surprisingly, those owners did not want a house wedged in their backyards. 
Well, on Monday night the City of Sydney council voted nine to one in opposition to the development, based on the loss of heritage, the floor to space ratio violation and ''bad design destroying amenity'', according to residents who attended the meeting. The council's Lord Mayor Clover Moore rightly summed it up by saying, ''this is basically a bad design trying to be shoe-horned into a very special part of Darlinghurst.''

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The End

Monday, July 25, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Past and Present: Royal Sovereign Hotel

From the 1880s to the 1920s, The Royal Sovereign Hotel in Darlinghurst was the scene of numerous political speeches. Local council candidates would use the corner pub as a place to meet the electorate and would either speak from the bar or from the lace-metal balcony. At some meetings, crowds of up to 300 people would gather on the street to hear from the politicians on the balcony above. 


I love the picture above, from Trove, which shows the Royal Sovereign, St John's Church and Darlinghurst Road in the 1920s. Click on it to enlarge it so that you see the bill posters along the wall on the right. 
The other two archive pictures (at top and below) were taken in 1925 and are from the council's demolition books. The Victorian-era hotel was demolished soon after and a new, longer and higher hotel was built on its place. 


Almost 90 years later the hotel still stands on the corner of Liverpool Street and Darlinghurst Road, and while it remains the Sovereign Hotel, it is more commonly known as the Darlo Bar. 


The Darlo Bar is owned by the same group, Solotel, who own the Kings Cross Hotel and Green Park Hotel. 



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Links:

Thursday, July 21, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Bars: Darlie Laundromatic

One of the worst things about my blog is that I am a crap snapper. During the day my photographs are fine, but at night: forget it. That is the reason why I often don't write posts about my evening adventures. But then I sometimes wind up at some curious or original establishment and I feel that I just have to share, so I snap away and then return home to discover that all the pictures are mostly black with blobs of colour. And this is one of those occasions (so, please, excuse my terrible snaps).


I was with my dear friend Ruby Molteno on Tuesday night. It was a wet evening in Sydney, the rain was insistent, but I hadn't seen Ruby in so long, apart from a brief snack-attack at the Third Village. First she went overseas and then she went to the north coast and now that she had returned again, it was time for a catch up. So for such a special reunion, we cowered under umbrellas and walked to the local laundromat.


The Darlie Laundromatic bar opened three weeks ago in a disused laundrette at the top of Palmer Street, near Oxford Street. It's one big, long room, with a communal table running down the middle and a couple of smaller tables at the back. There are plans to open up the rear courtyard and also utilise some of the floors in the building above. 


The only signs of the bar's former incarnation are a long row of water pipes with taps running along one wall, a laundry menu (above) and a small length of washing line, hung with freshly laundered aprons and tea-towels. 


According to its website, the Darlie Laundromatic is open from 11am to 11pm, from Tuesday to Saturday, but when we arrived just on 10pm, we were told they had already shut the bar. We lingered a bit to check out the menu and were then told by a barman that we could order a drink, as there were still a few people finishing their beers. Ruby was keen on a coffee, but the espresso machine had already been cleaned, so we consulted the drinks menu under the guidance of the friendly barwoman (above). 


The drinks menu features home made organic cordial, which can be ordered as a non-alcoholic beverage ($4) or with vodka and soda ($7.50). There are also the usual beers and ciders at the usual bar prices, as well as a short, well-priced wine menu. 
The food menu features gluten-free, dairy-free, vegan and vegetarian options and includes a grilled, organic minute-steak sandwich or ''grilled mushroom-steak'' on sourdough with truss tomato, zesty rocket caramelised onion and harissa aioli ($14/$13); a ploughman's platter with Afghan flat bread, vintage cheddar, dill pickles, hot sopressa, chili jam and quinoa tabouli ($15); and a potato, fennel and dill salad with smoked salmon ($14).


We had to go with the organic cordial, considering it's not something you see on the menu everywhere. The cordials are made on-site and I had the pear and maple cordial with vodka and soda, while Ruby went for the raspberry and ginger flavour.


It was a nice change from the usual vodka and tonic, vodka and OJ types of drinks and was pretty good for $7.50. We grabbed a seat at the long communal table and listened to the particularly good music - played on a turntable or record-player - that included PJ Harvey's Send His Love to Me, which Ruby and I are awfully fond of. We are also both fond of flowers, so were happy to discover a wonderfully scented bunch of early cheer in a skull vase on the table.


It was about 10.30pm and we were finishing our drinks when the music started lowering in volume and the lights in the room brightened. We took the hint and left. I love all these new bars that are popping up everywhere, it's just a shame their licences don't allow them to remain open longer. 


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Darlie Laundromatic
304 Palmer Street
Darlinghurst NSW 2010
02 8095 0129

Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Detritus: Monday Morning

No, that's not the detritus of my weekend. 
I've actually given up the 311 for the moment and am now walking to work, which is far more interesting than staring out the window of the bus. Yesterday morning I came across a few abandoned toys, including that bong on Nimrod Street, as well as a dollhouse on Tewkesbury Avenue:


And a condom on Darley Street:


I wonder what I'll see today.

Monday, July 18, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Villas of Darlinghurst: Brougham Lodge

Detail from c1835 painting, Darlinghurst Road, by Frederick Garling, 
with Brougham Lodge at left.
Brougham Lodge: allotment of over 8 acres granted to James Dowling in 1831.

Brougham Lodge was built in 1831 for the second Chief Justice of NSW, Sir James Dowling, who took over the role after Francis Forbes was given long leave in September 1835. 
Sir Dowling was born in London in 1787 and studied at St Paul's School and worked as a parliamentary reporter before being called to the bar in 1815, at the age of 28. 
Thirteen years later, at 41, he decided that he wanted to make ''myself useful to the public'' and advance his ''private interests and welfare of my numerous family,'' and so applied to the Colonial Office for an appointment abroad. 
In February 1828 Sir Dowling arrived in Sydney aboard the Hooghly with his wife, Maria Sheen, and their six children. The couple had ten children but four died in infancy. Maria, his wife, died six years after their arrival in Australia and Sir Dowling then remarried Harriet Ritchie, the widowed daughter of John Blaxland (older brother of Blue Mountains settler Gregory Blaxland). The newlyweds made Kings Cross their home, living at one of the busiest junctions in the area, but I'll get to that later.
Sir Dowling initially came to Australia to act as puisne judge, or regular judge, but in 1835 he won the battle against Sir William Burton for the role of Chief Justice. He was also knighted in 1838.
Sir Dowling was a hard-working jurist, described by one colleague as having a ''painstaking and anxious industry rarely equalled'' who ''never failed to make himself its master in every detail'' of cases brought before him.
In 1829 he delivered the first sitting of the Supreme Court in the Hunter Valley (at the Union Inn) and also travelled to Norfolk Island for the same in 1833.
He worked so hard that in 1840, his daughter, Lady Dowling, despaired: ''Papa has for six days been at court until seven and eight o'clock in the evening. Yesterday he was there from 10am until three this morning.''
It seemed Sir Dowling was driven by a desire to build a good life for his children. 
His salary as a puisne judge was 1000 Pounds a year, which doubled when he became chief justice. 
Still, in 1828 he wrote to his patron, Lord Henry Brougham, in England, that ''Without parsimonious economy . . . I cannot keep out of debt . . . even with my frugal habits.
''I have been obliged to mortgage the little property I have scraped together to enable me to maintain and educate my children.''
But this dedication to his children and the role of Chief Justice would eventually take its toll. 
In 1840 he was advised by his doctor to take medical leave for three months and a year later Sir Dowling applied for 18 months leave in order to regain back his strength lost from ''13 years of incessant judicial labour, never once relaxed''.
But his seniors refused this leave until June 1844 when Sir Dowling collapsed on the bench. 
Sir Dowling eventually booked passage on a ship but before he could sail, he died on September 27, 1844, aged just 56.
Sir Dowling's home from 1831 to his death was Brougham Lodge, which was built at what is now the junction between Darlinghurst Road and Victoria Street in Kings Cross. He was granted over eight acres there in 1831. Brougham Lodge was initially designed by an unknown architect, but John Verge completed the designs.
The painting at the top of this post also shows the two windmills, known as the North Darlinghurst Mills, which featured on the Kings Cross landscape in the 1830s. There were also three other windmills on Darlinghurst Road - Clarkson's Mill and two wooden-post mills - as well as the Craigend Mill, all located along the ridge line and in the highest points of the neighbourhood so as to best catch the air currents. The mills were used as a source of renewable energy and to grind grain.
After Sir Dowling's death, the former chief justice's home was tenanted and also used as a boys's school. It was sold to developers in 1882 for 7000 Pounds and demolished soon after.
The Holiday Inn now marks the site of Brougham Lodge.


Nearby Brougham Street was named after Sir Dowling's home, while Dowling Street and South Dowling Street, which run from Woolloomooloo to Paddington, were named after the former Chief Justice.
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Friday, July 15, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Past and Present: Corner of Hardie and Liverpool Streets


I have walked around this particular corner of Hardie and Liverpool streets countless times so I instantly recognised it in this March 1931 photograph. The then Sydney Municipal Council would photograph scenes like the one above for their "Demolition Books" and there are hundreds of them in the council's archives. They are a great record of the times. I love how the photograph below captures how the children of the neighbourhood have gathered around to watch the demolition of their old corner shop, and I particularly like the little boy on the left who is just staring at whoever is behind the camera. 


I also love the old painted-on advertising, which you can still find in NSW country towns such as Portland in the central west, where the Letterheads sign-writing group repainted all the old signs in 2001. Incidentally, if you walk along the Liverpool Street side of Novar, you can still see the old, painted name sign. It is so faint that every time I pass by, I'm surprised to see that it's still there. 
Today, the corner of Hardie and Liverpool streets seems so much quieter:


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Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Darlinghurst Blog: Books: Razor, By Larry Writer

The mean streets of 1920s and 30s Darlinghurst are soon to have a national audience when a television series based on Larry Writer's 2001 book, Razor, airs on the Nine Network from July 30 mid-August.
I am looking forward to seeing this show, not just because it is set in Darlinghurst, but because I love period pieces and they don't seem to be made all that often as they are apparently quite expensive to produce. 
Screentime, the makers of the Underbelly series of programs, are producing Razor. Much of it has been filmed on sets but I also understand they have shot parts of it on location. 
Writer's non-fiction book on which it is based will also be re-released to coincide with the television series so I expect there is going to be - if not already - a renewed fascination with this rough period in Sydney's history. 
I first read Razor about five years ago and re-read it recently, this time copying down all the street addresses, so that I could walk through Darlinghurst and check out all the historic Razor-gang sites. 
The book is about the birth of organised crime in Australia and centres on sly-grogger Kate Leigh, who was born in Dubbo, in the NSW central west in 1881, and brothel madam Matilda ''Tilly'' Devine who was born in Camberwell, in south London in 1900.


Leigh (above), who will be played by New Zealand actress Danielle Cormack, began her life of crime at the age of eight stealing from her parents, the local shop and playing truant from school. At ten, she ran away from home and by her mid-teens was running riot on the streets of Glebe and Surry Hills. By her 20s she was prostituting herself to make money for herself and daughter, Eileen. 
In 1914, living with a bunch of crooks in the slums of Frog Hollow, near Albion Street in Surry Hills, she helped plan the Eveleigh Railway Workshops payroll robbery. The famous heist, worth more than 3000 Pounds went wrong however, and Leigh ended up being sentenced to seven years at Long Bay Gaol, in Sydney's south-east.
''Seven years for stickin' to a man,'' Leigh said.
''I'll swing before I stick to another.''
Upon her release in 1919, Leigh decided to make the most of amendments to the Liquor Act, which had been made three years earlier. 
In 1916, 5000 Lighthorsemen and other members of the Australian Infantry Forces, unhappy about their harsh conditions and long working hours, went on a drunken rampage at Liverpool, southwest of Sydney.
According to Writer, this ''unbridled, booze-fuelled violence'' gave the anti-liquor lobby more ammunition and following a referendum, under NSW Premier William Holman, 60 per cent of New South Welshman voted for pubs to change their closing hours from 11pm to 6pm. 
This legislation remained until 1955 and resulted in what became known as the six o'clock swill when drinkers would rush the bar and try to down as many drinks before 6pm as possible - which had its own bad consequences.
Anyway, with bars and pubs now closing at 6pm, Leigh saw a business opportunity and when she was released from jail, opened her first sly-grog shop. Soon after, she had enough money to buy a home for herself and Eileen at 104 Riley Street, Darlinghurst (East Sydney):


And she also rented six premises in Surry Hills (such as 25, 27 and 31 Kippax Street, now demolished) which she used as ''sly groggeries'', including this one at 212 Devonshire Street:


According to Writer: ''At the height of her career, Kate ran more than 20 sly-groggeries.
"Some of her sly-grog shops were upmarket and frequented by businessman; others, said police, 'catered to the worst class of thieves and prostitutes'. 
"On Friday and Saturday nights, crowds of men milled in the streets awaiting admittance to 'Mum's', as her establishments were known.
''From the early 1920s until the 40s, Kate Leigh, as Sydney's leading sly-grogger and with her income protected by her own combative nature and a team of bashers and gunmen, was one of the wealthiest, and most flamboyant, Sydney-siders.
"Another key to her success, she always said, was that unlike many of her less successful rival illicit alcohol sellers, she did not partake of her product.''


Like Leigh, Matilda Devine also decided that the ''straight and narrow life was a route for fools'' and as a teenager began prostituting herself on the streets of London. She was soon making 15-20 Pounds a week, when the average wage was about 2-3 Pounds.
At 17 she married Australian solider James Devine, and at the end of the war she followed him back to Australia, arriving in Sydney in 1920.
Devine, who will be played by another New Zealand actress Chelsie Preston-Crayford, moved from various digs in Paddington, Woolloomooloo and Darlinghurst, and wasted no time in getting on the streets and making money, with her husband acting as pimp.
''Between 1921 and 1925 she was arrested 79 times for her usual offences - whoring, obscene language, offensive behaviour and fighting,'' Writer writes.
''But by 1924-25, she was getting into more serious trouble . . . on a charge card dated 11 January 1925, Tilly is described as a 'married woman residing with her husband. She is a prostitute of the worst type and an associate of criminals and vagrants'.''
Devine served time at Long Bay Gaol for the beating of a commercial traveller and was also sentenced to a further two years for slashing a man with a razor.
Like Leigh, Writer writes, Devine used her time in jail to take stock of her life and when she was released, she set about building ''the biggest, best-organised, most lucrative, brothel network Sydney has ever seen.''
Her first brothel was in a ''slum cottage'' in Palmer Street,  Darlinghurst, where she ''fitted out its rooms with beds and faux-exotic decor and put a red light in the window''.

191 Palmer Street, which became Devine's Darlinghurst headquarters after she moved to Torrington Road, Maroubra, in Sydney's south.

Like Leigh, Devine also took advantage of the legislation, specifically the Police Offences (Amendment) Act of 1908, which made prostitution illegal for the first time, forcing street workers into brothels.
Devine provided the premises for the prostitutes and the women paid her a percentage of their earnings. She also charged freelancers 2 Pounds a shift to use her rooms.
Jim Devine sold cocaine to the prostitutes (users were known as snow-droppers) as it made ''economic sense to foster drug addiction in the workers: it ensured loyalty and meant prostitutes increasingly preferred payment in cocaine rather than cash.''


Cops such as Frank ''Bumper'' Farrell (above left) and William Mackay (above right) policed the streets of Darlinghurst in their unique way. Mackay cut a deal with Devine and Leigh that if they could run their businesses cleanly and without violence, and if they agreed to act as informants on others, they would not be targeted by the boys in blue. 
Farrell, who is the subject of Writer's most recent book, Bumper, published last year, was said to ''inspire a fear in crooks''. Devine would act like a good schoolgirl when he was around. Leigh was not so fond of Farrell and called him that ''Bloody Bumper''.
The cops had a lot to deal with in those days.
Sydney was no longer a small town but a ''sprawling metropolis with a decaying inner-city surrounded by middle class suburbia. In the two decades from 1910, Sydney's population doubled from 630,000 to 1.2 million.''
And the drug trade was ''out of hand''. In the 1920s there were about 5000 drug addicts in Kings Cross, Darlinghurst and Woolloomooloo.
People smoked marijuana and opium, injected heroin and morphine, drank paraldehyde and chorodyne, but cocaine was Sydney's drug of choice.
''Snow was snorted by the rich at parties, by businessman in swish 'snow parlours' where each table had a bowl of the drug in the centre, by vagrants in alleyways, by mobsters needing a belt of courage before pulling a job, and by prostitutes seeking fortification to get through a Darlinghurst night,'' Writer writes.


Not only did the cops have to deal with Devine and Leigh, drugs, sly groggeries and prostitution, Razor also has an ensemble cast of violent crooks, standover men and thugs, such as Frank ''the little gunman'' Green (above left), Phil Jeffs (above right) and Norman Bruhn:


Razor, the book, takes its name from the preferred use of weapon in those days. According to Writer: ''Sydney's criminals had always kept handguns and knives in their armoury, but after the Pistol Licensing Act of 1927 dealt an automatic prison term to anyone with an unlicensed firearm, may outlaws began carrying another weapon:  a cut-throat razor, honed sharp.''
Bruhn, a mate of Leslie ''Squizzy'' Taylor arrived in Sydney from Melbourne in 1926 and within months was the number one criminal in Darlinghurst and Kings Cross. Bruhn and his gang made the razor their trademark weapon. 
''A cut-throat, Bengal-style straight shaving blade could be bought for a few pence at a grocer's or chemist's,'' Writer writes of the proliferation of the weapon.
''Although they could do horrendous damage, a blade, unlike a gun, was not necessarily used for killing. 
"Many victims of razor attacks did die, but the razor was more often used as an instrument of intimidation and disfiguration.''
Bruhn, who lived with his wife, Irene, in a ''seamy little flat'' at 21 Francis Street (below) died after being shot twice in the stomach in June 1927.



Frank Green was the ''most lethal gunman in Sydney'' and employed by Devine to protect her brothels. Green lived at 21 Harmer Street, Woolloomooloo (below), with his wife and children, but also carried on affairs with countless prostitutes, including Nellie Cameron. He was known as a drunkard, a psychopath and cocaine addict and ''wouldn't hesitate to bash up a prostitute if she didn't hand him a cut of her immoral earnings.''
Green died in 1956 when he was stabbed in the heart by his then girlfriend, Beatrice Haggett, at their flat on Cooper Street, Surry Hills.


Phil 'The Jew' Jeffs was born in Latvia in 1896 and jumped ship in Sydney in 1912. He operated a fruit barrow in Darlinghurst before following his dream to be a ''rich crime boss, decked in fine clothes and loved by beautiful women.'' He set out by mugging drunks, selling drugs and working as a cockatoo at sly grog-shops. In 1929, his dodgy drug deals ignited the Battle of Blood Alley in Eaton Avenue, Kings Cross (now an enclosed courtyard off Bayswater Road). 
Jeffs had been cutting his cocaine with boracic acid and when one gang realised they were being ripped off, they challenged him to a fight. Everyone was injured, and Jeffs almost fatally, but he went on to fight another day, even after being shot in his own home in 1929.


In the 1920s, Jeffs worked as a bouncer at the Fifty-Fifty Club, ''a seedy dance hall and sly grog and cocaine palace'' in the Chard Building (above, built in 1924) on the corner of William and Forbes streets.
In 1932 Jeffs purchased the club at a discount price as the owner was tired of police raids. 
According to Writer: ''A visitor to the Fifty-Fifty Club in its riotous mid-30s heyday would enter the creaking cage elevator at ground level, and ride up past nondescript offices on floors one to three before alighting at the fourth floor . . . the doorman would open the door, and frisk guests for firearms and ensure that they had money.
''If approved, the visitor entered a cavernous room with carpet on the floor, slightly tatty lounge suites, decorative palms and flower-filled vases, and deep chairs festooned with colourful cushions . . . guests sat drinking heavily or snorting cocaine from small bowls.''
I walk by this building, now home to Royalty Prussia, countless times, but Writer really brings the history alive. Razor, the book, is worth buying just for this chapter, which includes incredible detail about what Devine, Leigh and their fellow crooks would get up to when they were On The Town.


Other characters in Razor seem more glamorous, such as that of Pretty Dulcie Markham (above left) and Nellie Cameron (above right). Yet both worked as prostitutes and were rough as guts. Markham apparently ''confounded anyone who equated beauty with purity'' while Cameron was ''the most sought after gangster's girl''.


Cameron had a flat at 253 Liverpool Street (above) where she would entertain her clients, one of whom was shot in the buttocks in November 1944. In the 1950s she lived in a flat on Denham Street (below) where she stuck her head in a gas oven and died at the age of 41.


In the end it was not the police who got Leigh and Devine, but the taxman. Leigh had once lived in a grand terrace on Lansdowne Street in Surry Hills (below), but by the 1950s she was bankrupt and forced to live in a ''squalid'' room at 212 Devonshire Street, from where she had once operated a sly-groggery. When the government ended the six o'clock swill in 1955, Leigh was out of business. She died on February 4, 1964 at St Vincent's Hospital, after suffering a stroke. 


For Devine, who had once owned properties throughout the inner-city and eastern suburbs, including a terrace at 145 Brougham Street, Woolloomooloo (below), the end was equally unglamorous. Devine quit crime in 1968 and struggled to make ends meet on the old age pension. She died at Concord Repatriation Hospital, in Sydney's west, on November 24, 1970.


Writer's extremely well-researched book really brings this period of Sydney's history alive. 
Since it was published in 2001, it has inspired a GPS-guided tour, a stage show, and now a television series. Judging by this website, there could also be a film in the works.
Devine has also been remembered, with a small bar in Crown Lane named after her.

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UPDATE: Interview with Razor author Larry Writer