RE-BIRTH OF SYDNEY

Waipa Post, Volume 32, Issue 1781, 10 July 1926, Page 7

RE-BIRTH OF SYDNEY

NEW BUILDINGS WORTH THREE-

MILLIONS.

The new buildings that are towering into the sky in all directions in Sydney at the present moment represent an outlay approximately of £2,750,000 (states a Sydney newespaper). This is in the city proper, and is apart from building operations which consist of reconstruction and remodelling, and which involve another immense outlay. In this £2,750,000 governmental and municipal buildings, if one excepts' for instance the new Government Savings Bank, represent only a comparatively small sum. The huge outlay takes the form almost wholly of private enterprise within the city proper. Add to it the building that is proceeding feverishly apace in the city's environs, and in the far spreading metropolis, and it he expenditure would assume colossal proportions. It is exclusive, again, of the gigantic city railway scheme, which when completed, it is estimated to cost £6,600,000, of the Sydney harbour bridge, and ithe electrification of the suburban railway lines, which it is estimated to cost another £6,000,000. On the railway alone 1 probably a little more than £1,000,000 will be spent this year.

In the city proper ito-day ■ more ■than seventy missive new buildings are being erected.

Little old buildings which have stood the ravages of time, and upon which massive neighbouring buildings of the architectural splendour of to-day 'look down imperiously and with something of disdain, are quickly being demolished. They have had their day; they have lingered superfluous in the march of progress. They are not without their sentimental associations, but they strike an incompatible note to-day. One *s not surprised to see them being elbowed out. What is a little surprising about Sydney ttf-day. however, is the number of costly and comparatively modern buildings, not a few of them with ornate and pretentious facades* that are reeling before the hand of the demolisher to make way for still larger and taller and more massive buildings. The wealth of money that they represent is as a bagatelle compared with the outlay that will be involved in erecting in their places massive structures in keeping with it he demands of the future.

"What one is witnessing everywhere is the rebirth of an old city. The throb, the glamour, the vague and indefinite charm of its crowded narrow streets, whose original laying out was with no regard for the future, will always remain, but about them there is being evolvedi a city worthy, architecturally, of one of the world's greatest ports.

For the year ended December 31 last new buildings in the city and siuburty represented a cost of £ll,587.149. .Sydney to-day has surrendered cheerfully fo the grinding, dull roar and the banging and ithe hammering that are transforming its skyline, and that are spreading before the eye a new city and a new metropolis.