History

Poking through the top of flower beds is the spire of the old underground public toilets located in Hyde Park at the North-East corner of the intersection of Park and Elizabeth Streets in the CBD. These facilities were one of several underground facilities built during the early years of the 1900s. During the 1800s the…

Harry’s Café de Wheels, the mandatory late-night feed for all those who enjoyed best day ever in Sydney. A must on anyone’s 24-Hour Sydney itinerary. Harry’s is a Sydney icon. The van has been serving peas and pies since the 1930s when Harry Edwards first opened his café in front of the naval dockyard. In…

For a best day ever, take yourself back in time. If you look closely at the image you can distinguish the outlines of a kangaroo or wallaby. These carvings are some of the 11 or so found in the Glades Bay Native Gardens area in Gladesville. These carvings are located at what was once a…

Riddle me this. Why do the Wynyard station’s platform numbers start at the number 3? Where have platforms 1 and 2 disappeared to? For a best day in Sydney, why not find out where. Those who park cars, know the answer. Laying immediately to the west of platforms 3 and 4 are these high arched…

24 Hours in Sydney is proud that Sydney was blessed with many Art Deco style film houses throughout the suburbs. Many have gone now. Today we remember one of the best where this writer spent many a Saturday evening watching cult classic movies. The Valhalla was located in Sydney’s inner west suburb of Glebe. It…

During the 2014 refurbishment of Town Hall station, construction workers exposed this sign which directed people trapped in the city during WWII towards the safety of an underground air raid shelter. This is a grim reminder of the genuine threat Sydney locals endured in the early 1940s, as the threat from the Japanese grew. This…

This is the great White City Tennis southern stand in Rushcutters Bay. It was constructed in 1922 for the NSW Championships until the Olympic Tennis Stadium and Tennis Centre were built at Homebush. It was also home to the Australian Tennis Museum between 1983 and 2005 before it too was moved to Sydney Olympic Park….

That’s right! Sydney has its very own Egyptian Sphinx. It was carved by WWI veteran William Shirley, “The Sphinx” can be found near the entrance to Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park at Bobbin Head Road and forms the centerpiece of a WWI war memorial. Private Shirley carved this piece while a patient at the nearby Convalescent…

There is a small chip in the wall outside platform 1 that is what’s left of a little-known event that occurred at Central Station in 1916. On Valentine’s Day in 1916 Australia was fighting in WWI and many army volunteers were stationed at training camps across the country. At 9am at a camp near Liverpool,…

It may be easy to overlook these pyramids around Bayview in Sydney’s north but they are in fact some of the last remaining structures from World War II. From 1941 to 1942, the Federal Government aimed to protect mainland Australia and ensure that they had adequate defenses in place to defend the area from Japanese invasion….