Newtown, New South Wales

Newtown Sydney, New South Wales
King Street, Newtown at night.
Population	12,696
• Density	7,940/km2 (20,600/sq mi)
Established	1862
Postcode(s)	2042
Area	1.6 km2 (0.6 sq mi)
Location	4 km (2 mi) from Sydney CBD
LGA(s)	City of Sydney Marrickville Council
State electorate(s)	Marrickville
Federal division(s)	Sydney, Grayndler
Suburbs around Newtown: Stanmore Camperdown Darlington Enmore Newtown Erskineville Marrickville St Peters Alexandria

Newtown is a suburb in the Inner West of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Newtown is located approximately 4km south-west of the Sydney central business district. Newtown lies across the local government areas of the City of Sydney and Marrickville Council. The postcode is 2042.

Geography and setting

The main street of Newtown, King Street, begins along the spine of a long ridge that rises up from the coastal plains around Botany Bay. The street reputedly follows an ancient Aboriginal track that branched out from the main western track (which is now covered by Broadway and Parramatta Road) and which continued all the way to the shores of Botany Bay. According to the colonial diarist Watkin Tench, when Europeans arrived in Sydney it was possible to walk easily all the way from Sydney Cove to Botany Bay in a few hours, through a grassy and lightly-wooded area that Tench described as being like English parkland.

Intersection of King Street, Newtown with Enmore Road, close to Newtown railway station.

Commercial area

The main shopping strip of Newtown is King Street, one of the longest and most complete Victorian-era commercial precincts in Australia. King St is often referred to as "Eat Street" in the media due to the large proportion of cafés, pubs and restaurants among the clothing and book shops. Standing on King Street and looking as far as the eye can see, one can recognize a wide variety of ethnic food, with almost every cuisine from East Asia represented. King Street and Enmore Road, which branches away to the South-West at Newtown Bridge (where the road passes over the rail line at Newtown Station), together comprise a 9.1 kilometre round-trip of some 600 shopfronts.

Newtown Pubs

In part because of its industrial and commercial history, the Newtown area contains a significant number of pubs. These include a number of late Victorian period pubs and several outstanding Art Deco pubs from the mid-1900s.

Main article: Pubs of Newtown

Hub Theatre

One of the most notable (and formerly infamous) local landmarks is the Hub Theatre, located opposite Newtown Station, next to the old Newtown Town Hall. The original Hub stood at 222 King St, on the site of the Burland Community Hall, but this site was taken over and rebuilt as a cinema by the Hoyts chain in the mid-1900s and the Hub moved to its present location, on the site of an earlier vaudeville theatre. It was converted to a cinema in the 1930s, but from the early 1970s onwards, with the relaxation of Australia's repressive censorship laws, it was used to screen pornographic films and for the staging of live "adult" sex shows, including the long-running "Little French Maid". The Hub closed as a 'porno' venue in the late 1980s and had been vacant for some time; the owners of the Dendy chain attempted to secure the venue for its Newtown cinema, but were unsuccessful. Recently, the Hub has been home to live comedy shows and other such performances, seeing a rejuvenation of the building.

Performing Arts School

In the 1990s, Newtown High School was chosen by the NSW Department of Education and Training as the site for a new specialised performing arts high school, which would combine traditional academic subjects with music and theatrical performance education. The school was renamed Newtown High School of the Performing Arts.

The Trocadero

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The Trocadero, photographed in Feb. 2007, just after the completion of restoration

One of the most significant architectural conservation projects in Newtown in recent years has been the restoration of the Trocadero dance hall in King St North. This large entertainment venue -- one of the last 19th century dance halls still standing in Sydney -- opened in 1889. Over the years it functioned variously as a dance hall, a skating rink, a cinema, a boxing and vaudeville venue, a bicycle factory and a motor body works.

From 1920 onwards it was owned by the Grace Brothers retail company, and several sections were leased out as shops or accommodation. For many years the shopfront on the northern side of the building housed Maurice's Lebanese Restaurant, commemorated in John Kennedy's "On King St, I'm A King". The building was purchased by Moore Theological College in 1974, and from 1981 to 1994 it housed the Con Dellis used furniture store, but all occupation ceased after that time. Fortunately, a comprehensive restoration program during 2005-2006 by Moore College has returned this outstanding 19th century building, including its elaborate Flemish-style facade, to its former glory.

Graffiti and street art

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The Dr. King Mural, King St, Newtown

Main article: Newtown area graffiti and street art

The Newtown area is also known for its creative graffiti and "street art". The most prominent of these works are the large murals created in the late 1980s and early 1990s, which were painted on the walls of houses and shops in the Newtown-Erskineville area. Graffiti of all kinds can be found throughout the area and spray-painted "tags" have proliferated all over the area in recent years, although more recently the style of tagging has become far more elaborate than the simple spray-can signatures that litter walls throughout the district.

Examples include a mural of American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. on King St., the "Great Wave" mural in Gowrie St., the "Three Proud People" mural (a reproduction of the famous photo taken at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics), and the "map of Africa" mural in King St.

History

King Street and Newtown train station from a coloured postcard approximately 1906

Newtown's reputation as a retail precinct was established early. Marcus Clark, one of Australias leading retailers was based there.

Aboriginal history

The Newtown area was part of the land of the Cadigal band of the Eora people, who ranged across the entire area from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to Botany Bay in the south-east and Petersham in the west.

The first Aborigine to be interred in the European fashion was Tommy Tommy, who is buried in the Aboriginal section of the cemetery at St Stephen's Church. This cemetery also contains a sandstone obelisk erected in 1944 by the Rangers League of NSW in memory of Tommy Tommy and three other Kooris buried there -- Mogo, William Perry and Wandelina Cabrorigirel, although their graves are no longer identifiable..

19th Century

Newtown was established as a residential and farming area in the early 19th century . It got its name from a grocery store opened there by John and Eliza Webster in 1832, at a site close to where the Newtown railway station stands today. They placed a sign on top of their store that read "New Town Stores". Passers-by took this to mean that the area was called New Town and the name caught on, with the space gradually disappearing over the years to form the name Newtown.

On December 12, 1862 the Municipality of Newtown, covering 480 acres (1.92 square kilometres), was incorporated and divided into three wards: O'Connell, Kingston and Enmore. In 1893 a plan was discussed to rename the area 'South Sydney' (as two municipalities North of Sydney Harbour had merged to form North Sydney three years earlier), but nothing came of it.

The area was rapidly developed in the late 1800s, with many former farms and other large properties being subdivided and developed as row-houses. With its predominance of Victorian-era houses and shopfront styles, with balconies, ornate architectural decorations and elaborate iron lace, Newtown is similar to other well-known inner city suburbs like Glebe, Paddington and Balmain.

Typical Newtown Terrace	Terraced Cottages in Newtown	'Sympathetic' Infill Development

Although Newtown always had a significant proportion of low-income working class residents -- many of whom worked in the city or at local shops, factories, warehouses, brickyards and at the nearby Eveleigh Railway Workshops -- retail and service trades dominated the suburb increasingly throughout this period, with and shopkeepers together accounting for 70-75% of the working population. But during the late 1800s and early 1900s Newtown prospered, so much so that in the Jubilee Souvenir of the Municipality of Newtown, published in 1912, it was described as "... one of the most wealthy suburbs around Sydney.".

Several large estates and many imposing Victorian mansions were built, as well as many rows of single-storey row houses and two-storey terraces. As in many other historic areas of Sydney, some of the largest and most important houses, such as Erskine Villa (formerly on Erskineville Road, and which gave its name to the suburb of Erskineville), were demolished and the estates subdivided. Another tragic loss was the home of Mary Reiby in Station Street, which was acquired by the NSW Department of Housing in 1964, demolished in 1967, and replaced by a public housing apartment block.

One of the most impressive surviving sets of 19th Century housing in Newtown is the line of imposing terraces along Warren Ball Avenue in north Newtown, where five elegant five-storey mansions run the entire length of the street, facing onto a park.

19th-century mansion terraces, Warren Ball Ave	Victorian-era terraces, Gum and Jacaranda trees, sth Newtown	Lovingly restored grand 19th Century house, Dixon St, south Newtown	"Tresco", an elbaborately decorated Italianate terrace;, Brown St, Newtown

Early 20th century

Although it prospered in the late 1800s, during the first half of the 20th century, and especially during The Depression, the area became increasingly run down, with wealthy Sydneysiders preferring to settle in newer and more prestigious areas like Strathfield, Burwood, the North Shore and Eastern suburbs. Like many inner-city Sydney suburbs such as Glebe and Paddington, Newtown was for many years regarded as a slum.

In the post-war period, the low rents and house prices attracted newly-arrived European migrants, and Newtown's population changed radically, becoming home to a sizeable migrant community comprising Greeks, Italians, and many other nationalities . Many of these families opened and ran restaurants, cafes, milk bars, grocery stores and other business along King Street. In recent years, as these families have aged, many of these longstanding postwar businesses have closed and the shops have been sold and redeveloped, with property values increasing astronomically over the last twenty years .

Industry and commerce

From the late 1800s onwards, the Newtown area became a major commercial and industrial centre. King St developed into a thriving retail precinct and the Newtown area was soon dotted with factories, workshops, warehouses and commercial and retail premises of all kinds and sizes. Several major industries were established in the greater Newtown area from the late 1800s, including the Eveleigh rail workshops, the IXL jam and preserves factory in north Newtown/Darlington, the St Peters brickworks and the Fowler Potteries in Camperdown.

South end of King Street, Newtown. Visible in the distance are the iconic brickworks chimneys of Sydney Park.

Modern Newtown

Although it was originally a relatively prosperous suburb (the legacy of which is the numerous lavish Victorian mansions still standing in the area), Newtown and its surrounds gradually became a working-class enclave, and for much of the 20th century, Newtown was a low-income blue-collar suburb, often denigrated as a slum. After World War II it became home to a large migrant population.

From the 1970s onwards, many major industrial and commercial sites in the Newtown area were closed or vacated. Rising rents and property prices, combined with other economic and social factors, saw many businesses relocate to outlying areas of the city . Many of these former commercial sites have since been re-developed as housing, including the Silo development near Newtown Station, and the Alpha House and Beta House apartment complexes on King Street, which were formerly both multi-storey warehouses.

The atmosphere of tolerance and diversity has also attracted a number of other cultural subgroups such as Goths, Mods and punks, although Newtown has become increasingly gentrified in recent years.

Mid 20th century

In 1949, Newtown was incorporated into the City of Sydney. In 1968, a controversial redistribution of local government boundaries by the Askin State Liberal government saw part of Newtown placed under Marrickville Council.

Because of its proximity to Sydney University and the Sydney CBD, the comparatively low rents, and the availability of a wide range of cafes, pubs and restaurants, Newtown began to attract university students in the 1960s and 1970s. The area became one of the major centres for student share-households in Sydney and it became a mecca for many young people. Newtown became a haven for students and gained a reputation as a bohemian centre, with a strong student, gay and lesbian population.

From the 1970s, as the post-war population prospered, raised families and aged, many moved to outlying suburbs to build larger houses, a supply of picturesque and relatively cheap terrace houses and cottages entered the rental market, which attracted many students to the suburb.

Like other similar inner-Sydney suburbs (most notably Paddington and Glebe) the trend of gentrification has led to another significant shift in Newtown's demographics.

Some homes like the one pictured have been restored and represent an example of nineteenth century architecture in Sydney. The northern end of Newtown (closer to the University and the city) is considered the more prestigious, with house prices and rents in this part of town often higher than those for similar properties in south Newtown, Enmore or St Peters.

Newtown Court House

Newtown Post Office

St George's Hall

Late 20th Century and Early 21st Century

In the mid-1960s the cinema was converted into a community hall and it was renamed Burland Community Hall in 1965 . For many years it was the venue for community events such as dances, concerts, film screenings, meetings, parties, wedding receptions and a community market. In 1986 the upper floor of the hall was taken over for the Newtown branch of the City of Sydney library network, following the decision by Marrickville Council to close their Newtown library branch due to budgetary constraints. In 1995 the library moved to new premises in the former Salvation Army Citadel in nearby Brown St, and Burland Hall was redeveloped into offices and retail premises.

During the 1980s the many pubs in the area housed a thriving live music scene, notably the The Sandringham in King Street. One of the best-known Australian bands to emerge from this scene was the Whitlams, who held down a formative residency at "The Sando" for several years.

Musician John Kennedy wrote a tribute to the area in the mid-1980s. His single "On King St I'm A King" namechecked familiar Newtown landmarks and local figures of the time, including "The Wire Man" (a local eccentric who collected wire and wire coathangers), Maurice's Lebanese restaurant, and the Coles New World supermarket, which occupied the site of the current Dendy Cinema.

During the 1990s many long-established businesses closed, including Brennan's Department Store, a charming old-fashioned general store founded in the 1800s, and one of the last relics of the heyday of Victorian commerce in Newtown. The rise in property prices and rents has also led to an increasing turnover in local businesses, due to spiralling annual rent increases. In the case of one popular local Italian restaurant in King St, the business operated very successfully for several years until the landlord abruptly raised the rent by 110 percent, making the business unviable overnight.

Another Newtown landmark which has undergone many changes during the 20th century is the site of the former Burland Community Hall , on King St. In the early 1900s the site was occupied by the original Hub Theatre, Newtown . From the mid-1900s it was occupied by an Art Deco-style cinema operated the Hoyts cinema chain.

One of the most significant and visible changes to the area has been the redevelopment of the Silo Apartment complex, which occupies part of the former grain silo and flour-mill complex built on the site of the original Newtown station, at the end of Station Street, just west of the present station. Rather than demolishing the silos and building a new structure, the developers undertook a major reconstruction of the building and created a series of circular apartment spaces, augmented by the construction of more traditionally shaped apartments on the lower levels.

Transport

Rail

Newtown Railway Station

Newtown railway station.

Newtown railway station is located on the Inner West line of the CityRail network.

Newtown Station opened in 1855, as one of the original four intermediate stations on the Sydney to Parramatta rail line (the others being Ashfield, Burwood, and Homebush), and it was soon serviced by ten steam trains per day. In 1878 the station was moved from its original location at the end of Station Street to its current location by the fork of King Street and Enmore Road.

Although well served by trains, the station's accessibility is far from ideal, since the present station was built into a deep, narrow cutting under King St, with the result that the platforms are several metres below street level and can only be accessed by a steep stairway. In July 2006, the NSW state government announced an upgrade to the station including the installation of lifts, which will finally make it accessible to disabled passengers.

Until the 1960s (when trams were phased out in many parts of Australia, including Sydney) Newtown was a major hub for train-tram transfers; a number of regular electric tram services were centred there and the old Newtown tram depot (long vacant and now largely derelict) still stands next to the station.

Buses

Sydney Buses operates buses to Newtown. The trams from the pre 1960s were replaced by regular bus services which inherited the old route numbers -- 422, 426, 428 -- and follow the old tram routes that run along King Street and Enmore Road, going inwards to the city and outwards to Tempe, Dulwich Hill and Canterbury respectively. Since then the 423 service from the city to Kingsgrove via Newtown has been added. There is also the 352 service that goes east through Surry Hills, to Bondi Junction and the 370 service running north to the University of Sydney and Leichhardt and south-east to the University of New South Wales and Coogee.

Population statistics

In the 2001 Australian Bureau of Statistics Census of Population and Housing, the population of the Newtown postcode area was 15,027 people, in an area of 1.9 square kilometres. The population was 49% females, 51% males. 33% of the population was born overseas. The eight strongest religious affiliations in the area were in descending order: No religion, Catholic, Anglican, Orthodox Christian, Buddhism, Uniting Church, Presbyterian and Reformed, and other Christian. The 3 most common forms of dwelling were in decreasing order: a semi-detached, row or terrace house, or townhouse; a flat, unit or apartment; a separate house.

Politics

Like most of central and inner-city Sydney, Newtown is one of the traditional 'heartlands' of support for the Australian Labor Party. As a result, while Newtown and other areas were within the City Council boundary, the ALP was able to control Council for several decades.

The Liberal Party state government of Robert Askin, which came to power in 1966, was keen to see Labor's control eliminated, so in 1967 Askin abolished Sydney City Council, installed a tribunal of administrators, and undertook a controversial redistribution of the city's boundaries, which saw much of the former ward of Newtown re-allocated to the neighbouring municpalies of South Sydney and Marrickville -- thus moving a significant portion of the Labor-voting population out of the Sydney City Council electoral area.

For Federal elections, Newtown lies partly in the electorate of Grayndler, currently represented by Anthony Albanese of the ALP, and partly in the electorate of Sydney, currently represented by Tanya Plibersek, also of the ALP.

Both of these electorates saw strong Green votes in the 2001 election, and it was expected that the Green candidates, rather than the Liberal Party, would provide the main opposition to the ALP in the 2004 election, although the Liberals ultimately did narrowly retain their lead over the Greens in these electorates.

Newtown is predominantly in the State Electoral District of Marrickville, which was represented by the then Deputy Premier Andrew Refshauge until his resignation on August 10, 2005. The resulting by-election, held on September 17, 2005 was won by Carmel Tebbutt.

Local events and culture

Newtown today is a vibrant Sydney suburb with over 600 stores, 70 restaurants, 40 cafes, pubs and entertainment venues along King Street and Enmore Road.

Live music

Newtown has been a hub for live entertainment since the late 1800s . Throughout the 1990s it was particularly known as a centre for indie rock, with the suburb home to many musicians and several live venues. In the late nineties it boasted a handful of popular venues: Goldmans / Newtown RSL, The Globe, Feedback and The Sandringham, all of which had closed by the late 1990s due to noise complaints or other factors.

However since the new millennium, the suburb has enjoyed a renaissance with the return of live music to The Sandringham (dubbed by regulars as "The Sando") after the pub's upper floor was rebuilt as a performance room, and small ensembles and bands still perform in the front bar. Popular 'Sando' residencies have included the duo of Dave Tice (ex-Buffalo) and Dave Evans (ex AC/DC), and cult singer-songwriter-keyboardist Louis Tillett.

Afer its takeover by Petersham RSL Club, the former Newtown RSL reopened as a music venue under the name of @Newtown, although live concerts has effectively ceased since 2006 as the venue has been adapted to exploit the current craze for poker.

Another recent addition to Newtown's live music scene is the intimate venue The Vanguard at the north end of King Street, and the continuing popularity of the lyric-sized Enmore Theatre.

The New Theatre

Cafe at the Newtown Performing Arts School

Theatre

Newtown and its surrounding areas have the highest concentration of independent theatres and live performance spaces in Sydney . Theatres include:

• New Theatre at 542 King St Newtown, was formed in 1932 and is Australia's oldest continuously performing theatre.
• Newtown Theatre: Cnr King & Bray Sts, Newtown South
• Enmore Theatre: 130 Enmore Road, Enmore
• the Newtown High School of the Performing Arts

In the 1970s and 1980s many theatres, cinemas and music venues in the Sydney CBD closed and some of the best-known, including the Regent Theatre and Her Majesty's Theatre were demolished. Due to the lack of "lyric" sized venues, the Enmore Theatre in Enmore Road has become into one of the busiest and most popular medium-sized concert venues in Sydney.

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The Newtown Festival in 2004

Newtown Festival

The Newtown Festival is a community festival of free live music, events, workshops, and stalls which has been held annually since 1981. Held in Camperdown Memorial Park adjacent to St. Stephen's Church. The purpose of the Festival is to raise funds for the Newtown Neighbourhood Centre, an association which provides services to the aged, people with disabilities, people from non-English speaking backgrounds and people on low incomes. Controversially, in 2006 for the first time the festival was held within a fenced confine.

Feastability

Feastability, Newtown's Food and Wine Festival, showcases the eclectic international cuisines of the Newtown Precinct along with Australian wine, local pubs and brewers, bakers and confectioners. The festival, which is held on the last Sunday of each September, started in the mid 1990s as 6 stalls outside the legendary Hub and has grown to become a major event of the inner west. It now takes place in the grounds of Newtown High School of Performing Arts, has over 40 stalls and features all-day entertainment from musicians and artists as well as kids activities. The festival is organised by Marrickville Council.

Under the Blue Moon Festival

An alternative community festival held in Newtown, and occurs in September. The event has a variety of entertainment; live music, discussions, street performances, fashion shows and other subculture presentations, especially those of the Goth community. Local business and special interest groups provide a diverse variety of entertainment, including a local alternative hairdresser and even the local mortuary with a display of coffins. The festival is not one for the faint of heart, but well suits the accepting nature of Newtown.

Newtown Jets

Newtown Rugby League Club -- the "Newtown Jets" -- was Australia's second oldest rugby league club. They currently compete in the NSWRL Premier League competition, a tier below the NRL's national premiership, and enjoy strong support in the local area and good crowds at their home ground of Henson Park, Marrickville.

Main article: Newtown Jets

Gay & Lesbian Newtown

Newtown (and Erskineville) are also home to the other half of Sydney’s large gay and lesbian population . The gay and lesbian community also extends into neighbouring Glebe, Leichhardt, Annandale, Marrickville, Enmore and Dulwich Hill.

Newtown is home to one of Sydney’s well-established gay and lesbian pubs “the Newtown Hotel”. Located in Newtown is Twenty 10 http://www.twenty10.org.au/ a support organisation for young gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, same-sex attracted and gender-questioning people who are under 26 and having problems at home or have recently become homeless

Newtown in film and TV

In the late 1960s, Newtown was the setting for the ground-breaking Australian TV drama series You Can't See Round Corners, which starred Ken Shorter as a draft dodger hiding out in Newtown.

In the mid-1980s, the well-known service station on King St (built in the Spanish Mission style) was used as a location for scenes in the Ray Lawrence film Bliss, which was based on the novel by Peter Carey. In the film, the service station was used as the childhood home of Harry Joy's wife Bettina, played by Lynette Curran.

Two other recent films located in and around Newtown are Garage Days directed by Alex Proyas, depicting a fictional indie rock band based in Newtown, and Erskineville Kings, starring Hugh Jackman, which features extensive use of locations in Newtown and Erskineville.

The ABC television drama, Love Is A Four Letter Word, starring musician-actor Peter Fenton and featuring live bands each episode, included extensive location shooting at the Courthouse Hotel in Australia Street.

Famous residents and local identities

• Mary Reibey (1777-1855), Pioneering entrepreneur who graces the $20 note.
• Thomas Browne (1826-1915), son of Sylvester. Under the pseudonym Rolf Boldrewood he wrote seventeen novels including the classic Robbery Under Arms.
• Sir Reginald Marcus Clark (1883-1953), Chairman and managing director of retailer Marcus Clark & Co. Ltd.
• John Villiers Farrow (1904-1963), Academy Award winning Australian film director and father of actresses Mia Farrow and Prudence Farrow.
• The Whitlams, pop band.
• Youth Group, an Australian pop rock band mostly known for their hit remake song 'Forever Young'.
• Murray Cook, one of the members of renowned Australian children's group The Wiggles
• Adam Spencer, mathematician, science broadcaster and radio and TV personality
• Ignatius Jones, entertainer and former lead singer of legendary 80s rock band Jimmy And The Boys
• Monica Trapaga, singer, entertainer and children's TV presenter
• Dale Mills, human rights activist and journalist
• Jake Blundell, actor, cast member of All Saints, son of actor-director Graeme Blundell
• Cindy Ryan, lead singer of rock band Stella One Eleven
• Pat Hayes, member of rock band The Falling Joys
• Nic Lowe, Communal Transport Pioneer
• Anthony Hayes (Stevie Plunder), founding member of The Whitlams
• Frenzal Rhomb, - band originated in Newtown, Lead singer Jay frequently wears Newtown Jets merchandise
• Paul Mac - The Dissociatives
• Daniel Johns - Silverchair, The Dissociatives

Graduates of Newtown High School of the Performing Arts

• Nathan Foley - part of the cast of Hi-5.
• Abe Forsythe - played the role of Cam Todd in the Seven Network drama series Always Greener.

External links

• Newtown Neighbourhood Centre
• The Newtown Project, historical documents from Newtown
• Marrickville Council website
• Council of the City of Sydney website
• Newtown Jets Rugby League Football Club
• Newtown Precinct: Information about theatre performances and other live entertainment
• Newtown Festival
• Enmore Theatre
• The Vanguard
• Newtown CityPoem, a mural in Newtown