The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
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Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties - exhibition review
Underworld: Mugshots from the Roaring Twenties, which has just opened at the Museum of Sydney, is an exploration of crime in a decade that heralded the brave new world that emerged from the devastation of World War I. Curated by the…
‘The past lives on’:Paul Keating’s Redfern speech
Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating giving speech at the launch of the United Nations' International Year of the World's Indigenous People, Redfern Park 10 December 1992 Courtesy City of Sydney Archives (SRC24730) Last Sunday it was exactly 25 years since the…
Everything old is new again
Completed escalators at the York Street entrance of Wynyard Station, 17 August 1931, courtesy State Archives & Records NSW (12685_a007_a00704_8735000024r) Last week on 2SER Breakfast Nicole talked about the development of the City Circle line, and over the weekend an amazing…
Sydney's City Circle
The Great Excavator, Building magazine, 12 October 1923, p107 This week saw a massive overhaul of Sydney's public transport timetables, and this, along with the ongoing construction works around the city and suburbs have left many of us feeling a bit…
‘Sydney’s best kept secret’: Yaralla estate
Yaralla 2007 Courtesy City of Canada Bay Library Did you know ‘the most significant, suburban Edwardian estate in NSW’ is in Concord West, on the banks of the Parramatta River? Yaralla Estate, sometimes referred to as ‘Sydney’s best kept secret’, was…
Our City: 175 years in 175 objects
Young council employees c1905, probably employed as gully flushers Courtesy City of Sydney Archives (006011) This morning on 2SER, Lisa talked to Nic about the fantastic exhibition she's been working on which commemorates the City of Sydney Council's 175th anniversary . This…
The Lucy Osburn-Nightingale Museum
Sydney Living Museums’ wonderful event Sydney Open is coming up on 4 and 5 November, where the doors of more than 60 of the city’s most important and intriguing buildings and spaces will be open to the public for one weekend. One…
Sydney’s coffee obsession
Sydney Gazette, 31 July 1803, p4 via Trove Sunday 1 October was International Coffee Day and we certainly love our coffee in Australia. Historian Garry Wotherspoon has written an article in the Dictionary of Sydney about how our city’s obsession with…
Thomas Ley: Politician and murderer
Portrait of TJ Ley 1925 Courtesy National Library of Australia (nla.pic-an23460617) The State Archives and Records NSW has a new exhibition online and at the Western Sydney Records Centre in Kingswood titled ‘Captured: Portraits of Crime 1870-1930’. It explores photographs and…
Ross Gibson, The Criminal Re-Register
Ross Gibson, The Criminal Re-Register The University of Western Australia Publishing, 2017, 152 pp., ISBN: 9781742589558, p/bk, AUS$22.99 Ross Gibson’s new work, The Criminal Re-Register (2017) from University of Western Australia Publishing, is a fabulous re-imagining of a mid-twentieth century copy of a…