BARVENNON.COM
10th September 2006
AUSTRALIAN DIARY
What
is "objective
analysis"?
-
PADDINGTON FOR EXPATRIATES -
Maryna in NY emailed me last week. I got to thinking about
expatriates, and decided to do a spread on Woollahra, &
Darlinghurst, Sydney.
Woollahra Council is possibly the most prestigious address in
Australia. It is located on the Southern harbor shore of Sydney,
and stretches from the Opera House to South Head. It contains the
suburbs Darling Point, Double Bay, Point Piper, Rose Bay, Vaucluse,
Bellevue Hill, Edgecliff, Woollahra and Paddington. Vaucluse and
Bellevue Hill were reported recently as being two of the top ten
suburbs in Australia for real estate growth.
Some years ago Double Bay was the shopping center "par excellence" for
Woollahra. It contained quality gentleman's & ladies'
outfitters, trendy coffee shops, notable restaurants.
That has changed. Even Georges has closed.
Successive state governments have denuded Woollahra of it's
assets. For instance the half of Paddington that contains
Paddington Town Hall is not in Woollahra. More recently the State
Government has sold the Paddington Women's
Hospital & the Paddington Police Boy's club into the retail housing
market, and attempted to sell White City - which initiative aroused
massive public condemnation. The state government attempted to
impose an expensive tolled "cross city tunnel" on Woollahra residents,
however
massive protest has caused a revision of the road closures that were
intended to force use of the tunnel.
The most recent "redistribution" of local government regions has seen
Woollahra lose the lucrative Bondi Junction shopping mall to Waverley.
To the West of Woollahra is Sydney's "24 Hour
City" zone, centred on Kings
Cross. Below is a photograph of Tropicana, one of the more
popular haunts of non-trendies.
Tropicana, looking north
towards Kings Cross, which is about 200 meters further on.
Oxford Street (from Victoria Street Darlinghurst up to Sid
Einfeld Drive) is the Southern border of Woollahra.
The clothing capital of Australia now seems to be the 2 Km of Oxford
Street in Woollahra. Paddington. The division is quite
marked. On the northern (Woollahra) side of Oxford Street there
are about 150 designer fashion (clothing, cosmetics, leatherware &
accessories, jewellery, eyeware) shops, on the southern side
in that same strip of road
there are six clothing shops. Admittedly, about one third of the
South side street frontage of Oxford St. is taken up by Victoria
Barracks and Paddington Town Hall.
In any event, I have prepared, for the record, a complete
index of the shops from
Victoria Street to Queen Street, on the
Woollahra side of Oxford Street., as of September 2006. I
apologise for any inaccuracies, and will repair same if notified.
Below is a view down William Street from Oxford St.
Most of the terraces shown below are, in fact, clothing shops.
The shops are not "legal" shops, in the sense that they are "not
council approved"
modifications to terrace houses.
Above
is a view of William Street looking N. from about 50 meters N. of
Oxford St.
A view east along Oxford Street from
Paddington School
In general, most of the dress & fashion shops along Oxford Street
are the "shopfronts" for Australia wide or international
designers. The rents are high, which is gradually driving out the
"inexpensive" shops (e.g. secondhand books, chemists, newsagents,
furniture, crockery.).
The
books add to the ambience of this coffeeshop on Oxford Street.
The NE boundary of Paddington is Trumper Park.
Trumper
Park pond
The
Paddington Market opens Saturdays in the grounds of Paddington School
& The Uniting Church.
