The Murder of Miller's Point

The last old residential streets of inner Sydney still cling to life. You have to leave the colour and cruise ship crush of the Rocks to find them. Up Argyle Street, under the dripping belly of the bridge, past the pubs that fight to be first.

This is Miller’s Point, an unlikely community for such a place. Unlikely because it is home to ordinary people of modest means, surrounding by the harbour's splendour and wealth.

Here, wedged between the city and the Walsh Bay wharfs,  are old lived-in streets close to the water. Rows of brick terraces, rickety steps, cracked chimney pots, quiet back lanes, sun soaked laundry, straggly old orange trees, flags and football banners in the windows. Old people and younger ones coming and going, walking mostly. At night the waft of roasts, the aroma of warming spices and the clank of bottles. People at home. Living simple lives at street level in the heart of the city.

The Miller's Point community survived the development charge of the 1970s. Then, the legendary Green Bans warrior Jack Mundey led the fight. Houses, terraces, warehouses and tiny rocky spaces were spared the bulldozer's blade.

Now the place is threatened again. The posters on walls and windows tell you that, as does something else: the ugly hubbub on nearby Sussex Street where the shining blade of the Crown Casino will plunge into the earth. That $2 billion development will draw the eye to the sky, up and away from the stone steps and lanes.

When it is done the humble streetscape of Miller’s Point will be lost forever. Homes replaced by towers and apartments beyond the reach of most of us, lifestyle beyond our imagining. The streets bare of all but the most beautiful people alighting from expensive cars. Life at ground level replaced by bars and coffee shops, businesses and boutiques.

The public housing will go and residents forced to relocate. A few may be permitted to remain if they demonstrate pressing reasons to stay. Just what is sufficient to remain is unknown. Those who move face uncertainly, separation from friends and neighbours and loss of identity.

So the Miller’s Point community is fighting once again. In Argyle Place in 2015 there was an exhibition that portrayed and recorded the quiet and dignified residents. Men, women and children. Descendants of First Fleeters and newer Australians arrived from all parts of our troubled world. Walking by one Autumn day I see the few portraits that remain. Flo, Myra, Magie, Tony, Frank, Rod. I read the words recording life and history. The faces and their stories inform and challenge. Together they murmur: we lived here too, once upon a time.

To learn more about these people and their loss, visit millerspointcommunity.com.au