The Changing Face of a City - Cremorne Point, NSW, Australia
S 33° 50.822 E 151° 13.803
56H E 336246 N 6253395
This Historical Marker is on the Cremorne Point Foreshore Walk.
Waymark Code: WM11BHV
Location: New South Wales, Australia
Date Posted: 09/22/2019
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The broad printed metal sign overlooking the Sydney city skyline details some of its early history. There is also a photographic panoramic Orientation Table at the top, so you can see how the current skyline compares to just before Sydney hosted the 2000 Olympics. And more so the change from the reproduced painting in the bottom right corner from 1822! The text is:
The Changing Face of a City
"Sydney was established as a penal outpost on the far edge of the British Empire. It was hoped that those sent here for seven or 14 year terms would stay rather than return to the crowded cities from where many came. The assumption underlying this was that Aboriginal and was there to be given away as incentives to stay. Authorities in London would have preferred it the colony remained a place for convicts and freed farmers. However, the enterprise of both former convicts and free merchants quickly turned the port town into an important commercial outpost. Charles Darwin, who visited in 1836, thought the town was 'a magnificent testimony to the power of the British nation'. He left predicting the rise of a great maritime nation but somewhat disappointed by the avarice apparent in Sydney society. Convict transportation essentially ended in 1840. Colonial progress was symbolised by the large Government House built between 1837 and 1845, which dominated the harbour front impressing new arrivals. It still stands.
"The growth of the colonial wool industry and the discovery of gold in 1851 were catalysts for building activity and immigration. Circular Quay was completed in the mid-1850s. 'Docks built of hewn stone, are the first objects that attract the observation of the stranger', remarked William Shaw in 1854. By the turn of the 20th century Port Jackson, as Sydney Harbour was officially known, was one of the busiest ports in the British Empire. Greater Sydney had 487,000 people. North Sydney, which was slow to develop, had ballooned to over 22,000.
"Sydney's commercial boom after World War Two coincided with the rise in the Modernist architectural movement. With the exception of the Rock, there was little regard for buildings that had characterised the older port city. Skyscrapers replaced many earlier landmarks. The Sydney Opera House, completed in 1973, symbolised the transition from industrial and commercial port to global city. Large scale shipping has now largely left the Harbour."
Address: Cremorne Point Foreshore Walk, NSW
Visited: 2354-8, Tuesday, 3 September, 2019