Saving City Hall

 

Work has been going on for about a year on Brisbane's City Hall, whose foundation stone was laid in 1920. It's probably one of the most iconic buildings in the city forming part of the Brisbane City Council's logo (so it's even on our bills). In order to support its crumbling walls, they have had to excavate inside the main auditorium. In doing so, they have come across all sorts of artifacts. They've even uncovered the streetscape below complete with paving and drains!

Read more about the history of the building in the very excellent Your Brisbane Past and Present.

Third time's a charm.

The old house in the block behind ours, empty for so long, is now being pulled apart.

It was such a great old house, full of character. It's beaten the odds twice since I've started this blog. The first time here. Then again here. This time there was no notice of intent so nobody saw it coming.

See also A-M's post about it from yesterday here.

Panorama of Brisbane, 1880

More information on this painting later... in the meantime, can you spot anything familiar or where the artist was standing when he painted it? Click on it for a closer view.


(Edit) The artist was J.A. Clark and he was standing on Bowen terrace (at what is now the Wilson Outlook Reserve) looking at the section of the river which now boasts the story bridge so well done to Jake, 'me', anonymous and no doubt tff for spotting it correctly!  Spring Hill stands out with the windmill on the left and the newly erected "old" Parliament House on the right. It's a gigantic painting - I think 5 or 6 feet long - and it hangs in the Queensland Art Gallery. Definitely worth a visit!

Talking of visits, thanks for visiting this blog today! Lovely.

The Engine Room

 

The small red-brick building in the foreground is known as The Engine Room and sits on the banks of the river at Teneriffe. In 1908/9, the Brisbane Stovedoring and Wool Dumping Company constructed wharves and storage areas here for the export of, among other things, refrigerated meat to Britain. This building housed two ammonia compressors that were driven by steam engines to provide the refrigeration needed in the cold storage areas. It's now heritage listed.

I was really surprised they had refrigeration up and running this early - pretty state of the art I would have thought...especially in what was a relatively small outpost at the time.  Although, if you have a look at the buildings that remain in Brisbane from around that time, it is evident the British intended Brisbane to be a sophisticated, cultured and prosperous place and it looks like a lot of money flowed though here at the time.

Now and Then

I'm not sure if it's intentional or not but I LOVE that they've kept the old sign there.

Teneriffe Dock Bollard

It says "Evans, Anderson and Phelan" across the middle (an engineering company, I think). These dock bollards remain along the riverside path, rusting up nicely and serving as a reminder that there wasn't always posh flats round there. By the way, Teneriffe was only recognised as a suburb by Brisbane City Council earlier in the year so a big shout-out to all the Teneriffe dwellers who I'm sure now have a nice warming sense of validity.

Canned Great Barrier Reef Turtle Soup, Anyone?

With the opening of the new walkway on the Go Between Bridge, the top portion of a lovely old building has become visible with this old painted sign. Foggitt, Jones and Co. seems to have been some sort of canned meat factory back in the 1930s from most accounts...

If the Brisbane Courier from November 14th 1931 is to be believed, one of it's meats was live turtles from the Great Barrier Reef. They were shipped from up the coast and straight to the Foggitt Jones wharf where they were turned into canned soup! Yikes! Barbarians!

Queensland Parliament House

In 1863, an Australia-wide architectural competition was held to design a parliament house for Queensland and Charles Tiffin won with this French-Renaissance-style design. It's a gorgeous, majestic building which overlooks what is now the City Botanical Gardens. The first gathering of parliament was held here in 1868 and continues today.

May Theme Day: Statues

Being the first of the month, it's a theme day for members of the City Daily Photo community and this month the theme is statues. This is the Queen Victoria statue outside the Treasury Heritage Hotel (formally the Land Registary Building) in Queen's Park. Unveiled in 1906 (5 years after she died), it's by English sculptor Sir Thomas Brock who did the big Imperial Memorial outside Buckingham Palace among many others and is a replica of one he did in Portsmouth, England. She's a pretty imposing figure up on her plinth, her dark bronze features contrasting sharply with the floaty nymphs behind her.

Did you know... Queensland was originally going to be called "Cooksland" but they decided to change it in her honour.

Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

June Theme Day: Feet

This white wall is part of Naldham House on Eagle Street, home to the Australasian United Steam Company, now known more commonly as The Polo Club. It was opened in 1889 and so has first-hand experience of Brisbane's three great floods... with markers on the wall to prove it: from the bottom up: 1896, 1974 and way up there is 1893. Accounts of the 1893 flood are biblical in proportion. All sorts of debris floated down the river. Houses, lifted off their stumps and furniture crashed loudly into the Victoria Bridge causing half of it to be washed away. The Indooroopilly Railway bridge was carried away too.

So what's this all got to do with feet?
Well in 1893, Edward Street in the city was under 8 feet of water and the official level in the city was 23 feet and 9 inches above the mean spring tide. This marker here at the Polo Club looks like it's about 17 feet but I didn't have my tape measure with me.


Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Posting magically continues despite me being on me hols. Back in late June.