Newtown is almost as well known for its graffiti, street art and murals as for its other identities ("Eat Street", home to various urban tribes, etc) so I've decided to begin this blog by penning a eulogy for some the wonderful works that are either no longer with us or in imminent danger of being lost.
Apart from the landmark "I have a dream" mural on King Street, arguably the best-known and best-loved of these was the wonderful "Idiot Box" mural on Erskineville Rd, created ca. 1991 by Andrew Aiken and others. The bizarre and tragic story of Aiken's life is perhaps even more compelling and strange than his work, but that can be read on Wikipedia, so there's no need to repeat it here. His work was/is a very significant part of what gives Newtown its special character, but these works are rapidly being progressively lost; now there are only a few left and at least one of the major surviving works (the former PCYC on Erskineville Rd) is under threat from a deluded "development" proposal from retail monsters Woolworths, who want turn the entire block into a supermarket
(yeah, just what Newtown needs -- more shops and more traffic ....)
On to business ... "Idiot Box" was one of the landmark murals of the area -- visually striking, cleverly executed, and like several other similar works, a wry social critique.
As the picture (hopefully) shows, it was a striking trompe l'oeil work depicting a gun-toting Marcia Brady (from TV's The Brady Bunch seeming to burst out of a TV set, which in turn appeared to be breaking through the wall of the house on which it was painted. Adding to the 3-D effect, the TV dial and power cord were both applied objects, stuck onto the wall.
Sadly, this wonderful mural was removed in November 2007 when the house on which it was painted was bought and renovated by new owners. I also hear on the grapevine that these odious yuppies also have a bad case of Not In My Back Yard syndrome, and made a string of complaints about the neighbouring Imperial Hotel, which has become the second major Newtown area gay pub to mysteriously close its doors.
A bit of history .... the entire strip of houses and shops down Erskineville Rd had been scheduled for demolition in the 1970s as part of the NSW state government's radical plans of a new freeway system to feed into and out of the Sydney CBD. Similar plans were enacted in Melbourne, resulting the wholesale demolition of large tracts of working-class suburbs like Port Melbourne for the construction of the Westgate Bridge and other major new roads.
The Askin government's megalomaniac development plans would have seen a similar scheme enacted in Sydney, with huge new highways ploughed through the hearts of several historic inner-city suburbs including Pyrmont/Glebe and Newtown/Erskineville.
The Newtown area plan reportedly involved a major new thoroughfare that would have seen the widening of King St and teh demolition of much of its historiuc shopping precinct, with a new road connecting to a proposed southern distributor bulldozed through Erskineville, resulting the demolition of most of the shops and houses along Erskineville Rd.
Thankfully, the wonderful folks at the former Builders Labourers Federation (led by the heroic Jack Mundey) opposed these crazy schemes and placed Green Bans on the areas, which helped to save most of the affected buildings. This courageous and pioneering industrial action is now commemorated by Green Bans Park on erskineville Rd, opposite the (now derelict) Police Citizens' Youth Club (which was also extensively decorated by Andrew Aiken and others.
