Time for a city based Can you date?
Here’s a shot of Martin Place in Sydney’s CBD.
Can you date this photograph?
We have many other undated photographs in Photo Investigator and on our Flickr account. If you know the dates or any other interesting facts about these images please let us know.
Category: General
Anna Gray says:
A comment received via email from A. Cameron –
Interesting facts re Martin Place. Here are my comments:
The dominant building, Commonwealth Bank had a mighty single entry door of great width and weight.
Opening for business hours it would totally disappear as it sunk down below pavement level
To close, the door would silently slide up, the effort being provided by hydraulic high pressure water.
In the 1950s when I worked in the city, the pedestrian pavements had surface manhole covers and hinged steel lids with utility names such as AGL, MWSDB, SCC, PMG, HPCO etc…..
HPCO was the Hydraulic Power Company whose water powered the passenger lifts of Sydney, and compressed the bales of wool notably in Ultimo.
The energy for pressuring and delivering the water was provided by a coal fired power station built for that purpose. I imagine it may have been demolished years ago:
the Darling Harbour Entertainment site may have some memorial or foundations visible.
The building at bottom right of the photo is the GPO building at the corner of Martin Place/ George St.
Sincerely
A. CAMERON