The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.
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Darlinghurst Gaol and the National Art School
Entrance to Darlinghurst Gaol 1887, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (SPF/169) Darlinghurst Gaol, on the hill at the top of Oxford Street, is one of the largest standing colonial projects left in Sydney, and yet, many Sydneysiders barely notice it…
Seeing things in Black and White
An article, How to Begin as a Black-and-White Artist, by Lionel Lindsay in the Lone Hand, June 1911, had tips for aspiring artists, via Trove The Society of Australian Black and White Artists, now the Australian Cartoonists Association, is the world's…
Condemned and Demolished!
Bowden's Corner, Hunter and Castlereagh streets Sydney, c1907, City of Sydney Archives (094145). Notice the tree growing through the building! The large Norfolk Pine grew through the middle of it, which was used as a coat rack for the hotel…
Happy History Week
This week organisations across the state are celebrating History Week 2020, the festival organised by the History Council of NSW. Listen to Mark and Alex on 2SER here The History Council of NSW was established in 1995 as an umbrella organisation…
Listening to the Great Depression
People have been asking me a lot lately about how the economic recession we are experiencing now compares to earlier times of economic instability. Unlike the situation we're all in at the moment, which has come about largely because of…
Death of the Monorail
Sydney Monorail 6 September 2009 via Flickr (pbutke (CC BY 2.O)) I remember the childhood joy of riding the old Sydney monorail – a single-loop that connected Darling Harbour, Chinatown and the Sydney central business and shopping districts. You had to…
The squire of Enmore House - Joshua Frey Josephson
Croquet and archery in the grounds of Enmore House, Newtown c1865-70, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (SPF/389) Today I'm going to give you an insight into how my mind works and the connections I follow when I'm exploring the Dictionary…
Stars shining bright above you
Assistant astronomer Ernest Adderley at the Sydney Observatory looking through 6 inch telescope 18 February 1941 by Stan Grimes, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ON 388/Box 028/Item 125) This month in Sydney is a good time to look to the…
Armed with such terrible weapons
Plate VI, Cambridge, O.P., ‘On Some New Genera and Species of Araneidea’, Annals and Magazine of Natural History, XIX (Fourth Series) (1877) Today Sydney-siders take for granted that our local spiders, in particular the Sydney funnel-web, are dangerous and to be…
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Richard Dawson: Sydney's original iron man
Sign for Dawson's Foundry at Circular Quay c1854, detail of painting by Frederick Garling, Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW (ML 88) Richard ‘Dicky’ Dawson was an entrepreneur whose early iron foundry located down at Circular Quay was a landmark business…