Item 04: Memoirs of a Colonial Boy by Robert Joseph Stewart, ca. 1971 - Page 41
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[Page 41]
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The older wing of the Hotel Australia in Castlereagh St was considered to be a notably tall building: its walls were of solid brickwork all the way up. Lifts (elevators) were a novelty and hydraulically operated by special high-pressure water reticulated throughout the central city block by a private company which owned, rented, and maintained the lifts.
Long rows of very similar residential terraces similar to those in the West End of London, two or three storeys high, and often with basement living rooms, lined the streets of Kings Cross, Potts Point, Darlinghurst, East Sydney, Paddington, Enmore, Redfern, and Pyrmont.
The very wealthy merchants and rich gentry lived in mock castles or big mansions, standing in their own secluded grounds, at Elizabeth Bay, Darling Point, Point Piper, Bellevue Hill, and Lang Road overlooking Centennial Park. Those who liked big gardens where the soil was not sandy, favoured Glebe Point, Strathfield, and the high ground north of Parramatta.
The not-so-wealthy occupied pleasant single-storey detached houses in Woollahra, Waverley, Coogee, and along Edgecliff Road. Mascot (and Botany) was nearly all Chinese market gardens, tanneries, wool scours, and poultry farms.
St Mary's Cathedral was only half finished: just a chancel, choir, transept, and central tower with a belfry. The principal departmental stores were Anthony Horderns (wholly a family owned concern) which stood where the Head Office of the Australian Gas Coy is today; Lasseters (later Nock & Kirby ); David Jones (only at the present George St location); and Mark Foys, in a row of two-storey shops along the south side, and nearer end of Oxford St.
In 1903, Anthony Horderns store was completely gutted by a fire that smouldered for several days afterwards: it was Sydney's biggest fire up to that time. Fire brigades did not have long extension ladders in those days, and an employee (Clegg) was cut off by the flames and forced to jump, finally, to his death on to the street from a fourth floor window in sight of a large crowd of horrified people.