Darlinghurst Blog: Detritus: Winter 2012

Why have I not blogged in so long? Well, let's just say I'm glad winter 2012 is over. I'm going to pretend it never happened and move along. 

But still, it's hard to dismiss a whole three months of my life and there were some OK moments in that bleak time, including the official switching on of the El Alamein Fountain on Saturday 28 July.

Heaps of peeps turned out for the ceremony, which included short speeches by the RSL and family members of the fountain's architect and original manufacturer. There was also lots of people taking photographs and recording footage:

The cameraman on the left is filming me photographing him.

This photograph (above) captures the moment after the fountain was switched back on and everyone cheered. It was a good day so it was lucky it didn't rain.

During winter, I also discovered the joys of the Bandstand Cafe (above) at Green Park and its marvellous owner, Carlos. Please support his business because he is one of the friendliest cafe chaps in the neighbourhood and he makes a good soy flat-white too (with Bonsoy)! I also tried the cafe's lasagne and it was one of the best I've eaten.

Winter also welcomed a new mural on the exterior wall of the Darlo Bar, which features wolves walking all over a woman's face. 

I also spent quite a bit of winter with the animal in my life, Ralf the street cat, who came over to my apartment quite regularly to eat and run. He may only be in it for the food, but I still appreciate his friendship. Meow! This photograph (above) shows him sleeping on some dirty old mattresses that someone dumped at the bin monster in the middle of my street. 

On cold winter nights, a local chap with a telescope could often be found outside Strawberry Cream with the lens trained on the moon or a planet. He let passers-by take a look for free. I don't know the chap's name but he has a dog called Sarah and he's also on the St John's Church board. 

During winter walks I spotted a couple of Will Coles artworks, including the balaclava man at Belmore Street in Surry Hills and the culture teddy near the Taylor Square substation.

Speaking of Coles, this little dog was left in a handbag outside the supermarket in Kings Cross. The poor dog didn't look very happy. Just imagine how embarrassing it must be for him or her stuck there looking like that.

It was also during winter that 18-year-old Thomas Kelly died after being king-hit in Victoria Street, Kings Cross. It's still not known if the alleged offender, Kieren Loveridge, 18, was drunk at the time, but the NSW Government reacted by introducing tougher restrictions on the area's pubs and clubs, including the use of ID scanners at all licensed venues. 

The media went crazy with the story, publishing infographics, like the one below, "Dark Heart", which maps out the different areas of the Cross. Fitzroy Gardens, according to The Daily Telegraph, is known as "Poets and Pimps Corner". And bugger if you happen to live on Kellett Street, because it's known as the "Personal Services Strip". Hehe.

Kelly's death and the massive amount of media it attracted may have also deterred quite a few people from coming to the Cross for their night out. On Saturday nights it is normally impossible to find a parking space in my street, but a few weeks ago there were four empty spaces at about 10pm. 

But it's still the same old Cross with its proliferation of kebab shops, Chinese massage places, tobacconists, hairdressers and chemists, although some people might like to see an Italian delicatessen or homewares shop on the strip:

This poster was pasted-up on the window of the old Kirketon Road Centre at 38 Darlinghurst Road. I personally wouldn't mind another dress shop or a place where I can buy home-made dinners so I don't have to bother cooking. 

What would you like to see on the strip?

Across the Border: Kings Cross: Heritage Items: El Alamein Memorial Fountain

Isn't the El Alamein Memorial Fountain just the most beautiful thing?

The 52-year-old fountain is an engineering marvel, an internationally known landmark of Kings Cross and creates a wonderful sense of calm and feeling of awe at Fitzroy Gardens.

I, like so many residents, visitors, photographers and tourists to the Cross, have long admired its presence: the sound of its water falling into the pool below, the wet spray that envelops you when you walk by on windy days, the droplets glistening in the sun and the perfect orb of H2O created as if by magic.

But the much-loved fountain has been surrounded by scaffolding since early this year and I have longed for its return, which is why I am over the moon about it being switched back on this Saturday at 10.30am. 

Do not miss this historical moment when the taps are turned on and the fountain springs back into life.

The fountain was designed by architect Robert Woodward in 1959 for a design competition by the then Sydney City Council. Woodward did it mainly as a creative project, to push his discipline, and it must have been fantastic for him when he won the prize. 

The 211 wands that make up the fountain's dandelion-style shape were manufactured, in what must have been a fairly monotonous process, by metalworker Eric Williams (pictured above left with foreman George Bushnell, right).

The fountain is actually a war memorial, and was erected in commemoration of the battles of El Alamein during World War II. 

Australian soldiers of the Ninth Division fought near the Egyptian town of El Alamein and these two battles helped turn the course of the war towards victory for the Allies.

Woodward himself was a World War II veteran so he obviously put his heart into the design.

Rather than commemorating lives lost by Australian troops, the El Alamein Memorial Fountain celebrates a victory, and so rather than being a solemn memorial, it bursts forth with life and vitality.

Picture: State Library of NSW

After the fountain was officially opened in 1961, by the then Lord Mayor Harry Jensen, Woodward was catapulted into international fountain-designer stardom and he duly changed careers, setting up a private practice to focus on his new specialty "making art out of water".

(By the way, I love that chap in the photograph above who has his back to the camera. It's like he can't be bothered with all the pomp and ceremony; he just wants to admire that fountain.)

Woodward's design was copied around the world and even ended up in mail-order catalogues, where you could purchase your very own dandelion-style fountain. 

But they never had the same quality or effect as the original.

Of working with water, Woodward told Hazel de Berg in 1972:

"I like water very much, it's a fine medium to work in, a little difficult of course, one can't put it in a lathe or shape it as you do with metals, or forge it or cast it, but those difficulties themselves are what give it its main charm . . . it has form, it has transparency, it reflects light, has movement. 

"It has constantly changing form, although one can control it."

Woodward was also commissioned to create numerous replicas of the fountain including one in Malaysia (since dismantled) and three in the United States.

One of the US versions was made for the headquarters of Tupperware in Florida and also became the company's logo. 

In a 1996 interview with Paul and Susan Johnson, Woodward talked about how he created the fountain specifically for the site - remember this was before the Fitzroy Gardens were landscaped by Ilmar Berzins in 1969. 

"I would go to Kings Cross and look at it, both in the day and at night, and realize that as you walk down the street and look backwards, traffic blocked the view. 

"It needed to be high enough to be seen above cars and, luckily, people's eye line is just above cars. 

"The fountain needed to be seen from three different streets and the streets were different in those days - it needed to be a three dimensional thing. 

"I suppose the first idea that came to me was a ball of water and even the word itself seemed an appropriate thing of Kings Cross. 

"Fairly quickly my design evolved to form a dandelion. Of course the presentation method was difficult because how do you present water? I did that by going to Kings Cross and taking photographs of the site and then blowing them up and making a montage. I even used an old photograph of a dandelion in a montage. 

"Having the water in the air like that, a long way above the footpath, I used the contours of the site to create a pool just above the highest contour. 

"Then by setting it off to one side a certain amount, I had the chance of repetition once again. 

"The steps and the detail in the stonework repeats all the way down, but there is organic freedom in it, in that they are not all the same size and the pools shorten. It just grows in that fashion and the site dictates most of what happens."

The plaques from that opening ceremony in 1961 are still there today, as they should be, but after five decades the fountain was not in the best condition.

Many of the tiles in the surrounding pools were chipped or broken and had been replaced over the years by inferior copies. The wands were also clogged by years of dust - and washing-up detergent - and were not spraying as well as they should. Not to mention the water that would leak out onto the surrounding pavers.

The City of Sydney began working with Woodward on how best to restore the fountain to its original glory, and following his death in January 2010, that consultation continued with his family, including his widow, Margaret Woodward.

The restoration began in February this year and since then the site has been surrounded by scaffolding. I have been following the project with much interest and have even been lucky enough to be let through into the construction site to see how it was progressing.

The restoration project included the manufacturing of new wands and this task was given to the original fountain metalworker's son, Denis Williams.

He remade the 211 wands, just like his father did five decades earlier. 

It was a much simpler process for Denis, who had the aid of computers, but it was still a nerve-wracking process for him, especially on the night before the 211 wands were due to be screwed back into the ball, and the water switched on for testing. 

Before installing each wand, Denis Williams (pictured above) tested it with a hose to ensure the water flowed through properly.

And then once the wands were in place, he had to go around and check it all again, making sure the water came out of each wand with the correct pressure in a perfect circle.

I'm told, by sources close to the fountain, that the water tested again, now flows in a perfect globe and that is far superior to how it appeared before the restoration began. I suppose now it will look just as it did in 1961 - and I can't wait to see it. 

Years after the fountain was opened, Woodward still gained attention for his Kings Cross jewel. In a 1978 article about Woodward in the Bulletin magazine, journalist Carol Henty wrote:

When the day before the official opening came Woodward and his wife Margaret took their old friend, the sculptor Lyndon Dadswell, to see the first test.

It was a Sunday night in November. They heard the rushing water, then, above the hoarding they saw it, alive and alight. Dadswell burst out: 'Oh Bob, I wish it was mine'.

Woodward says: "You can know, of course, that it's going to work. But until you press the button you never know whether it will have that extra touch of magic."

El Alamein Memorial Fountain re-opening

10.30am, Saturday 28 July 2012

Fitzroy Gardens, Kings Cross

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To learn more about Woodward and the design process behind the El Alamein Memorial Fountain, visit the Heritage Branch website here, which has a comprehensive history.

Across the Border: Kings Cross: Bars: Fountain Cafe

I'm sub-titling this post as ''Bars'' rather than ''Food'', because I would definitely go back to the Fountain Cafe to drink but I wouldn't make a visit just to eat. I started drinking here only a few weeks ago when I discovered that it's loner-friendly and offers two drinks for the price of one until 9pm weeknights. That's about $7.50 for two beers, which isn't bad if you aren't in the mood for a pick-up pub.

It really is a good place to go for a drink when you happen to be on your own and thirsty, because you never have to fight for a table and its prime location on the bend, where Macleay Street and Darlinghurst Road meet, means there is lots of people- and car-watching to be done.

That voyeurism includes watching the countless tourists that like to photograph themselves in front of the El Alamein Fountain on the edge of Fitzroy Gardens:

So when my locally-based friend, Sapphire Tenzing (no relation of Sherpa), was up for a balmy summer evening drink al fresco last week, we chose The Fountain Cafe, because we had no energy to seek out a rare, highly coveted outdoor table at the Darlo Bar or Green Park Hotel. 

We began by ordering four glasses of white wine. As you do.
There isn't a wide selection to choose from on the happy hour menu, but the Rothbury Estate Semillon Sauvignon Blanc seemed like a better bet than the Lindemans. And the first two glasses went down quite well.

We decided to order food to soak up some of the alcohol, but I must admit we didn't have much faith in the kitchen, so it took us a rather long time to make a decision. The cafe is open from 7.30am to 11pm and serves breakfast, lunch and dinner. I will have to ask my friend, Ruby Molteno - The Queen of All Day Breakfasts - to try out their bacon and eggs, because I'm sure they would pass the test. The lunch offerings include sandwiches and burgers, while the ''all day'' dinner menu is made up of salads, pastas, pizza and ''Asian dishes''. We eventually settled on the grilled dory with chips and salad for me, and for Sapph, a Moroccan lamb pizza, which we had spied looking good on another table.

The fish arrived in a somewhat unpleasant, rich butter sauce. It was advertised like that on the blackboard so I only have myself to blame. I scraped most of it off and ate the fish, which was dry and unexciting.

The pizza, on the other hand, was quite delicious and enough for two people. The lamb wasn't chewy and there were refreshing blobs of yoghurt and rocket leaves scattered across the top.

I think we ordered about three or four more glasses of wine, but I don't recall exactly, because by that time night had long fallen and the Fountain Cafe staff wanted to close. 

We left a good tip before we were booted out on to the street and at that stage we probably should have gone home to ready ourselves for work the following day. Wise decisions are never made at 11pm, when you have had a few drinks. So we decided to kick on. 

We ended up at the Goldfish Bar in the Crest Hotel on the Darlinghurst Road strip. But it's probably best not to bore you with the drunken details and instead leave you with this lovely festive photograph of the fountain:

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Fountain Cafe

18 Darlinghurst Road

Kings Cross NSW 2011

02 9358 6009

www.fountaincafe.com.au

Across the Border: Kings Cross: Fitzroy Gardens

This Saturday there is going to be a rally in Kings Cross to protest the City of Sydney council's plans to redevelop the Fitzroy Gardens on Macleay Street.

The plans also include redevelopment of Lawrence Hargrave Reserve, which is located across the street on the top of the multi-storey car park on Elizabeth Bay Road.

Fitzroy Gardens is home to the famous El Alamein Fountain - which, like the Coca Cola sign, is almost a logo for Kings Cross - and on weekends hosts a food market (Saturdays) and a flea market (Sundays), so it attracts a lot of locals. The Lawrence Hargrave Reserve, perhaps due to its location, doesn't attract so much foot traffic, although it does have a good-sized rosemary bush, which is handy when you're cooking a roast.

As a result, the rally on Saturday is more a protest against the proposed changes to Fitzroy Gardens, while it seems the council is welcome to do what it likes to the little-used reserve.

The gardens were first established in the 1950s and their present design and landscaping date to 1971.

Prior to that, from the mid-1800s, the gardens's site was home to two large residences, Osterley and Maramanah:

Osterley

Maramanah - admittedly, not a great photo

And in those days Lawrence Hargrave Reserve was occupied by another grand residence, Kinneil:

Kinneil in 1944 with a smart guard of honour of Second Australian Imperial Force soldiers.

The 54 acres that is now known as Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay was granted to Colonial Secretary Alexander Macleay in October 1826 and he lived at Elizabeth Bay House after construction was completed in 1839. From 1841 Macleay's land was subdivided and sold off.

Osterley was built in the mid-1850s as a home for barrister Edward Broadhurst and wife, Harriet, and the family remained there until 1894 when it was then tenanted to various people including hotelier Charles Roberts, gynaecologist Joseph Foreman and Chief Justice of the High Court Adrian Knox.

The property was demolished in 1927 and the site was used for recreational purposes including miniature golf and tennis.

Maramanah was built earlier in the 1840s for shipping merchant William Deloitte but when he defaulted on his mortgage in 1850 the house was bought by Anna Challis, whose husband, John, later left a significant sum to the University of Sydney.

Politician Arthur Hodgson purchased the property less than a decade later but only kept it for a couple of years before selling to Thomas Farrell, who leased it out for the next 20 years or so.

Later owners include Edward Sparke (he named it Maramanah) and the Hollander family, who featured in Robin Dalton's 1965 memoir, Aunts Up the Cross.

In 1943, the grand residence was requisitioned for use as a recreational centre for US Navy personnel and a couple of years later became the canteen for the Royal Navy.

After the war, in 1946, Maramanah made the headlines when returned servicemen illegally moved in to the property, saying they had nowhere else to live. Supporters rallied outside and made public appeals for furniture and cooking utensils for the squatters. The squatters were accused of being Communist agitators, as the political party hosted a number of meetings at Maramanah during this time.

Kinneil's history is not as colourful. The big stone house was built for wine merchant John Brown in the 1840s and later owners included department store king David Jones, P&O Company shipping agent Henry Moore and railway contractor Robert Amos, who subdivided the property, creating Barncleuth Square.

Elizabeth O'Connell bought the house in 1913 and subdivided again to create eight blocks for apartments and later turned Kinneil into a guesthouse.

In 1943 Kinneil played host to the Australian and Allied Officers Club, providing accommodation and meals to more than 100 men.

It hard to imagine all that now, as there is absolutely no physical trace of these buildings's existence. By the 1930s Potts Point was the most densely populated area in Australia - a title retained today - and there was increasing demand by residents for greater amenities and recreational space.

The council responded to this need, and over the next two decades began purchasing at great expense the three properties discussed above, and Fitzroy Gardens was built in stages as the land was acquired.

The El Alamein fountain, designed by Robert Woodward and Phil Taranto (from Bankstown, in Sydney's west), was installed in November 1961 and named to commemorate the Ninth Division of Australian Imperial Forces and their famed victory in Egypt during WWII.

By 1968, when this photograph was taken by Beverley Clifford, Fitzroy Gardens was a popular community asset. But its haphazard design and dust-bowl effect created by large expanses of grass led to calls for a proper development of the park, incorporating all its varied spaces.

German and Latvian educated Ilmar Berzins was responsible for the project.

Berzins was the first qualified landscape architect to practice in Sydney and his designs, which include the Sandringham Gardens at Sydney's Hyde Park, were in the Modern European style.

Berzins's plans included building a better link between the El Alamein fountain and the rest of the park, as well as raised garden beds in hexagonal shapes made of convict sandstone brick. The bricks were laid specifically to highlight the indents of the worker's excavation tools.

The work was completed in 1971 and for the first time the park's disparate elements were combined in one unified design.

For forty years Berzins's Fitzroy Gardens have provided a sanctuary and meeting place for locals as well as attracting millions of tourists who seek to rest their weary feet on its benches and photograph themselves next to Kings Cross's landmark fountain.

Even thirty or so years after it was designed Berzins's garden began hosting a Saturday food market, that started with small crowds and now attracts visitors from outside the area. The gardens, with their meandering paths and secret spaces are a perfect home for market stalls.

But then the City of Sydney council, after stripping all character from Taylor Square with vast sheaths of grey granite, wanted another project to work on. In 2008 they began surveying locals about what they did and did not like about the Fitzroy Gardens.

An ''Intercept Survey'' from November of that year, in which 48 people filled out a workbook detailing their desires and dislikes, found that most liked the park just as it was.

There were a few complaints about Ibis poo and cracked paving stones but most wanted to retain the design of the park and the location of the stalls at the Saturday markets, and they certainly did not want any trees removed.

But the council is running ahead with their $9 million vision to homogenise the city and when they have finished, a visit to Fitzroy Gardens, could feel like a trip to Pyrmont or Circular Quay or Taylor Square. It will lose its identity.

The council's plans include demolishing Berzins's carefully placed convict bricks . . .

The removal of Berzins's palm grove . . .

And the razing of Berzins's artfully designed raised garden beds . . .

. . . to create a bland, flat space, paved in the council's signature grey granite.

The proposed construction also risks upsetting the root system of the 100-year-old Ficus tree in the picture above.

According to the council's concept plans their ''vision'' for Fitzroy Park is to ''tame the many levels of the park . . . the general sense of disorientation''.

But that complaint never cropped up in their Intercept Survey.

And you have to be suspicious of the council's motivation - and worried about their abilities - when they throw around sentences such as these:

''Our challenge is to reconcile two seemingly opposing impulses. Once (sic) to unify the space and to give is (sic) an urban order and a singular identity, the other to find within this organization (sic) spaces that are rich, intimate, robust and diverse.''

I'm opposed to the council's plans because if they go ahead Kings Cross will lose an integral part of its identity and, even more importantly, its heritage.

The 1970s provided few gifts in terms of architecture in Sydney, but Berzins's garden design is still appealing and is still functional. Berzins should be commemorated for this and his Kings Cross garden should not be destroyed.

When we in the 21st Century, start deriding our recent past and removing all trace of it, what will be left in 100 years time to prove that Australians and new migrants were actually capable of good design in the 1970s?

But the council wants to erase this real heritage to instead celebrate a contrived history by design-checking Alexander Macleay's butterfly and bug collection housed in the Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney:

''Still Fitzroy Gardens will recall its formative past. The jewel-like curios of the Macleay collection inspiring the material's palette, beautiful glistening pavements, custom seats winged like butterflies or petalled and open to conversation.

''While tiled benches with fluted bases incised like the brass weir on El Alemain fountain draw on more recent histories.

''Combined with arching palms, strange and unusual plants, Fitzroy Gardens will once again be wonderful place (sic), matching a grand and bohemian past with this future renewal.''

So the council wants to spend $9 million on glistening pavements, seating with butterfly wings and strange and unusual plants, but the Ibis will still continue to shit on it anyway.

The Friends of Fitzroy Gardens* is opposed to the council's plans and resident and member Michael Gormly, has built an entire website devoted to the cause. (He also has a blog devoted to the hood, called Kings Cross Times.)

Gormly spent most of last Saturday manning a small desk at Fitzroy Gardens to alert residents to the proposed development and encourage them to sign a petition against the plans.

Michael Gormly

Some people I spoke to at the markets scoffed at the idea that the garden-bed bricks were made from convict stone, that the palm grove was being removed and that the Ficus roots could be damaged during construction. They accused Gormly and Co of having ulterior political motives. But I have looked at the council's plans, including the heritage assessment and the arborist report, and they truly are convict stones, the palms are being removed and the Ficus roots could be damaged (''May result in some root severance damage leading to an adverse impact.'').

The more I learn about Fitzroy Gardens, the stronger I feel about not wanting to see this beautiful, character-filled place bulldozed and turned into some hideous cookie-cutter Cockle Bay style tourist attraction.

The Friends is organising the rally, which is being held this Saturday at Fitzroy Gardens from 11am. Visit the Save Fitzroy Gardens website for more details.

*The Friends is a coalition of local business and resident groups including The Potts Point Partnership, the 2011 Residents Association, Potts Point and Kings Cross Heritage Conservation Society, Darlinghurst Residents Association, the Kings Cross Arts Guild and the Kings Cross Community Centre.

SOURCES: Fitzroy Gardens and Lawrence Hargrave Reserve Heritage Assessment by John Oultram Heritage and Design, National Library of Australia, National Archives,

NLA Newspaper Archives, City of Sydney Council's Online Development Proposal and Other Documents.