Sydney History is a RU-vid channel looking at events, culture, icons and technologies that have come to shape Sydney into what it is today. There are many stories in this great city of our that are worth telling. Here I hope to tell a few and relate them back to the modern day.
Only because the Builders Labourers Federation imposed greenbans refusing to work on it's demolition. Various areas of Sydney would be a whole lot uglier if it wasn't for the Union.
And now a super expensive s-hole, unliveable, murderous traffic, with most homes owned by external investors. Most shopping centres are owned by same including Queen Victoria building
Fresh water is the determining factor in any new city location. Farming and crops demand it in addition to people. What happened to Sydney's tank stream is truly TRAGIC. 😞😞 M 🦘🏏😎
In 1964 I started working in Sydney (I lived at Arncliffe) as an apprentice electrician in the lift (elevator) industry. Every building, every location, and probably every bus and train in this doco, is familiar to me. Watching the construction of the AMP building, seeing it grow week after week, is one of the powerful memories I have of this period in my life.
Thank you. This is the only place I make content. Haven't made anything for awhile due to study etc. But I've got an episode in the works and it should be published in the next few months.
Sydney Cave Clan used to have a lot of great info on the Tank Stream, Transgrinder (Tunnel which goes under Opera House), Bankstown Bunker and other underground curiosities. Unfortunately think someone got to them post 9/11 and a lot of the content vanished forever. Oh wow. You only had 1 photo underground. They went down through the tanks themselves from what I can gather from memories of the photos.
Wow, I've never heard of them. They access to these sort of places sure did tighten up after 9/11. I seen another RU-vid video recently of a couple of guys in a blow up boat go through the St James lake and climbed this collapsing ladder on the other side. It was the best underground video I've seen recently. Can't remember what it was called now.
@@SydneyHistory The *Transgrinder* is probably what brought attention from authorities to them. I can't even find mention of it online today. It's a drain tunnel ground out of the sandstone which goes directly under the main hall of the Opera House down the middle of the stage and the middle of the room. In the basement there is a steel checker-plate cover over it.
Fun fact. As you drive into the basement of 20 bond street (OLD ASX before 2000) if you look up you will see a square concrete tube suspended in the air passing over the spiral driveway. This concrete encases a section of the tankstream.
Shit! That's what it was! I used to work there in the basement in 98 and through the move to the new building and always wondered what that was. Thanks!
Thanks for watching, glad you enjoyed the vid. Yeah some of them take months of researching and double checking and verifying against multiple sources. There's a lot of crape sources out there I can tell you. I do enjoyed making them very though.
Getting into the Tank Stream was a lot easier and a LOT less riskier before 9/11 - now the entrance in the lane next to the ASX has motion trackers/infra red camera up the wazoo. Don't even THINK of popping that manhole..
This is an excellent, highly informative piece, with graphics and maps that taught me more about the Tank Stream than ever before. Right from the beginning, access to clean water was always made easier for the rich, and harder for the workers and the poor. I appreciate the hard work that clearly went into this video.
Thank you for your nice comment it means a lot. It is amazing the detail and accuracy in the historical maps that were made by the early settlers right from the beginning.
Yes he certainly had a vision and even got to build part of it. Even some parts were later destroyed like the second rail crossing on the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Thank you. The tanks were about 100 metres to the south of the Tank Stream Bar location marked with a plaque on the wall. The Tank Stream itself is under the laneway in front of the entrance of the Tank Stream Bar where it then transitions under Pitt Street and out into the Quay.
Fascinating place from old Sydney town. They didn't muck around with litterers back then a public flogging. They should bring that back lol the city is disgusting with maccas wrappers and drink containers.
I used to work in the old Supreme Court building on the corner of King and Elizabeth Streets. In the basement of the building there is a plywood panel covering a recess in the wall facing St. James Road. I used to hear water constantly dripping behind the panel when I went down there to retrieve files. One day I peeked behind the panel and there was a 3 inch brass pipe in an S-bend shape. The water was dripping inside the pipe. I went upstairs and asked the Registrar what it was. He told me the pipe went directly into the sandstone and that was the spring at the head of the Tank Stream.
Wow that's amazing. To think such remanence of the spring still exist today and not many people know about it. If I'm not mistaken, the old supreme court building opened in the 1820 along with St James church next door.
@@SydneyHistory Yes, the building was originally designed to be a schoolhouse but Commissioner J.T. Bigge recommended it be repurposed as a courthouse. The first Chief Justice, Registrar and Prothonotary were appointed in 1824. However, the building was not completed until 1829. By 1845, the building was deemed inadequate and the Court moved to Taylor Square.
My Grandfather's both built much of sydney. one was a field engineering on the Avon, cataract and caudaux dam's on the south side and my other GF built many many of the old factory chimneys that existed around the inner west out to five dock.. All long gone now.
Wow, that's some contributions your grandfathers made to Sydney. Imagine the chimneys were similar to St Peters where the old brick works used to be and if I'm not mistaken I think John Bradfield was also involved with the Cataract dam project.
As a Sydney Greeter, I often take visitors on a walk along the route of the tank stream. You mention the ballot. Is it still happening and if so how do I enter? Thanks
That would a have been a fine walk. The tours still happen about once a year, but you have to go into a lottery. I think 1000s register and only a 100 or so are chosen. I think you can register at the Sydney Water website.
Great information, I've been fascinated by the Tank Stream since I learnt about it in school. During the preparations for the 2000 Olympics a friend and I worked under the Circular Quay pedestrian deck for three months. We went under in a small aluminium boat every day and night at low tide. Under the central section of the deck is a sand and gravel beach but where the Tank Stream comes out at the western end it has gouged a deeper channel. The job was hard but quite an adventure and opportunity to see the historic stream. That friend and I still go adventuring in the same beat up aluminium boat, we recently did a five day trip exploring another Australian lake and river system.
Wow what a rare experience that must have been to have seen such a culturally significant relic from our past. Thank you for sharing and keep exploring. 👍
I think his designs left a positive contribution to Sydney skyline line and architecture. Not all of them are pretty, but they do represent and remind us of architecture styles of the world.
Well paid jobs for everyone , affordable nice house for $20,000 anyone could afford and no mulitculturism , l guess it was paradise then compared to these days
The open plan at CC is obviously a good one. Look at the numbers of visitors catching trains that make sure they get their selfies taken while they wait. The fresh smell of the salt air and seeing the working harbour is also a plus.
True the open air is good, but I think we could of had the best of both. A nice classical architecture station without the expressway on top. The platforms could still be open.
