Mural 3: Victoria Street

Artists’ statement

The outcome for the ‘Battle for Victoria Street’ was distinctly different from that in Woolloomooloo. It exposed connections between developers and organised crime in Sydney – ultimately, a battle that local residents didn’t win.

Juanita Nielsen, a journalist and publisher of local newspaper NOW, refused to sell her house to make way for the Parkes Development Company’s proposal for Victoria Street. She also consistently opposed developer Frank Theeman’s plans for his development named Victoria Point.

Nielsen suggested his latest version of the project in 1975 “resembles the Ziggurat of Ur, viewed through a bad case of double vision”. It’s widely believed Nielsen was kidnapped and murdered because of her stance against development and corruption.

Until April 1973 there were 400 people living in Victoria Street properties that Theeman acquired for redevelopment. Within a few weeks most of them were evicted. An average of $153 per household was paid in compensation to the 393 tenants who were evicted.

By late January 1974 there was only one tenant left, Mick Fowler, who was then joined by squatters who formed the Victoria Street Action Group. The group aimed to preserve low-income housing, particularly boarding house accommodation for singles and group Households.

Supported by the Builders’ Labourers’ Federation (BLF) and the Federated Engine Drivers and Firemen’s Association (FEDFA), the group opposed Theeman’s plans to demolish houses and replace them with high-rise apartments for middle and high-income earners. They squatted in some of the 25 properties Theeman had acquired in Victoria Street.

Since proposed development along the Victoria Street escarpment affected Woolloomooloo and was part of the action plan precinct area, several joint meetings were held, resulting in mutual support. Several alternative development schemes were opposed by the action group whose members, according to news reports, came under extreme physical harassment from goons employed by Theeman, and the police. The Victoria Street activists took a final stand resisting forcible eviction in January 1974.

Juanita Nielsen single-mindedly sustained a crusade in the pages of NOW and managed to persuade the Water Board Employees Union to consider a Black Ban, based on existing trunk utilities being unable to cope. After the remaining residents were removed, she was the sole impediment to development.

Speculation over Nielsen’s disappearance on 4 July 1975 has since been connected to her discovery of developer links with the Kings Cross underworld, illegal gambling and police corruption. Before she disappeared, her last appointment was with Edward Trigg (an employee of Abe Saffron) at the Carousel Club in Kings Cross.

Another form of gangsterism sealed the fate of the BLF in NSW. The union’s general and Victoria secretary Norm Gallagher was spotted in the company of Theeman and the NSW minister of environment Sir John Fuller in Sydney, shortly before he gained control of the NSW branch and lifted the Green Bans in 1975.

A modified version of Theeman’s Victoria Point development included partial conservation of street frontage. But it sidestepped the National Trust classification of a street it described as ‘the Montmartre of Sydney’. The development finally gained City of Sydney approval.

With support from the building trade group of the Labor Council of NSW, and despite widespread opposition from residents, the scheme produced by the architectural firm Rommel, Moorcroft and Associates now covers the escarpment.