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Dictionary of Sydney

The Dictionary of Sydney
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Engineering and Infrastructure

The Dictionary of Sydney was archived in 2021.

Engineering and Infrastructure

Subject

Butler Stairs

Moore Steps

Bell, Edward

A Railway along Pitt Street - diagram of city railway and connections 1926

Letter. Talbot & Son, Circular Quay, complain of the stench from the closets & urinals under Moore's Steps and ask that they be removed. Cannot be complied with. April 1872

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Engineering and Infrastructure

Butler Stairs

Stairways such as Butler Stairs were part of the Sydney City Council’s Victorian infrastructure boom, and the sophisticated level to which these stairways are detailed shows a level of civic pride and financial investment in pedestrian infrastructure that had not been undertaken previously in the city.

Moore Steps

The design of Moore Steps that we see today follows a drawing signed by the City Engineer, Edward Bell, in 1868 but it was not the first design undertaken for this stairway.

Bell, Edward

Sydney's City Engineer and Surveyor who, between 1856 and 1870, was responsible for the design and management of construction on a wide variety of projects including water and sewerage systems, pedestrian and vehicular circulation and public buildings.

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A Railway along Pitt Street - diagram of city railway and connections 1926

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Text under the image reads as follows: One section of the above plan is of absorbing interest. It shows the inner city loop to which reference is made on our double-page. The loop is designed to serve the important part of Sydney that extends - roughly - from the Metropole to Market-street. This will principally serve Pitt-street. From Hunter-street to Market-street the course of the railway (underground) will be direct. It suggests - this is unofficial - stations near O'Connell-street, King-street, and Market-street. Referring to the railway to Manly Dr Bradfield says that after passing through the North Shore station, it will branch under the Grammar School Hill. It will probably run via Crow's Nest, and then to Middle Harbour, crossing near the Spit and through Seaforth and Balgowlah into Manly. There will be stations in the vicinity of Crow's Nest, Cammeray, Neutral Bay, Cremorne, Mosman, Seaforth, Balgowlah, Cotadamine-street. Wood's-parade, Manly, and North Steyne, with a goods yard at the last-mentioned place.

From the collections of the

State Library of New South Wales

(Sydney Mail 1 September 1926 p14)

Letter. Talbot & Son, Circular Quay, complain of the stench from the closets & urinals under Moore's Steps and ask that they be removed. ...

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Contributed By

City of Sydney Archives

Infrastructure

Transport infrastructure