Sydney in the Past

I am fascinated by old photographs, especially of well known locations as they looked a hundred or so years ago. It’s a bonus if there are people in those pics.

Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? was turned into a superb movie with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, Have a look if you get the opportunity, the performances of Burton and Taylore are the performances of  both their careers. In the play/movie Burton plays George, a middle aged. jaded professor of history who at one point says to Nick, a lecturer in biology: “When people can't abide things as they are, when they can't abide the present, they do one of two things ... either they ... either they turn to a contemplation of the past ... or they set about to ... alter the future.”

I disagree that a contemplation of the past is indicative of unhappiness with the present, I am quite happy in the present,  but, as readers will know, I have a greater interest in history than in altering the future.

Here are some pics of interest:

Pitt Street, Sydney at Central Station, 1926, traffic turning right into Eddy Avenue.

(Click on the photographs to enlarge).

Rawson Place, Sydney at Central Station, 1925, looking towards Eddy Avenue,

Corner of Market Street and Sussex Street, Sydney 1900