Tag Archives
THE NAKED CITY – TOPPLING THE TYRANTS
I have never been big on statues and even less big on really big statues, like the towering monoliths of the Kim dynasty in North Korea. Closer to home the statues of Queen Victoria, Prince Albert, Captain Cook and the various colonial figures that dot our city strike me as the ghosts of the past, […]
THE NAKED CITY – SLEEPOVER SYDNEY
Spending a night or two in a unique location, often in your own city, is nothing new. Whether you are roughing it in a sleeping bag for charity, glamping on Cockatoo Island or throwing your own backyard slumber party, the popular concept has been around for years. Taronga Park, which has conducted sleepovers at the […]
Trash talkers, toad attackers, Indigenous art destroyed: News Bites – 25 Sept 2019
Bite-sized bulletins by ALEC SMART Trash talk On Friday 20 September, an estimated 80,000 people – primarily youngsters – took over The Domain in Sydney for the global Strike for Climate rally, which culminated in a march to Hyde Park. City Hub witnessed a young man clutching a green shopping bag attempt to disrupt the […]
THE NAKED CITY – HITS AND MISSES AT THE SYDNEY FEST
Throughout the world major cultural festivals inevitably reflect the social environment and historical background of the cities in which they are held. Look at Australia for example. The highly successful and always innovative Adelaide Festival has built its brand on both the intimate layout of the city itself and decades of strong patronage of the […]
Late night opening insomnia
By Andrew Woodhouse “ZZZ… ZZZ …” “Andrew! Wake up!’ “What? It’s 3:00 am!” “But it’s time to go shopping “Are you mad? This is silly.” This scenario could be coming to you if the City of Sydney Council has its way. It has approved a trial of ultra-late shopping hours after a survey was recently […]
Late night Sydney loosens its bonds
By Sarah McLenaghan Since the inception of the NSW lockout laws in 2014 there have been growing calls for a revitalisation of Sydney’s nightlife. Last week, City of Sydney responded to these demands with a proposal for some of the most drastic changes to City planning and development across Sydney in decades. Lord Mayor Clover […]
THE NAKED CITY – VANDALISM IN THE MODERN AGE
Depending on your interest in history or a preoccupation with garage music, the Vandals were either a rampaging group of barbarians accused of sacking and looting ancient Rome or a bunch of 80s punk rockers from Huntington Beach California. Both no doubt reaped havoc in their heyday but it is the Germanic tribe who trashed […]
THE NAKED CITY – CINEMA CHUCKLES!
A few weeks ago a young woman in the UK was ejected from a screening of Sergio Leonie’s The Good, The Bad And The Ugly after supposedly laughing too loudly. It was later revealed that the evictee, who was celebrating her 25th birthday, was an Asperger’s sufferer, and that the classic spaghetti western was in fact […]
Captain Cook’s monumental controversy
BY ALEC SMART Graffiti vandals hit the Captain Cook statue in Sydney’s Hyde Park last weekend, demanding an inscription on its plinth be rewritten or erased. After standing in the park with its right iron arm aloft for over 130 years, long after its esteemed human progenitor was clubbed to death on a Hawaiian beach, […]
Skating on thin air: Council fines young rebels
BY ALEC SMART The City of Sydney plans to step up patrols around the immediate vicinity of the Anzac War Memorial and Pool of Reflection to deter skateboarding on the site – which many see as sacred – following complaints from War Memorial staff. At a recent Council meeting in June, Councillor Christine Forster raised […]
