Mural 4: A Balcony View 1882–1982

Installed 1982

A mural depicts a person in a yellow jacket with arms outstretched, standing above several older adults with grey hair and another person seen from behind.

Depicts the vibrant street life of Woolloomooloo in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Artist: Merilyn Fairskye, Michiel Dolk

Scenes from A Balcony View 1882–1982 are drawn from several sources, including 19th century newspaper cartoons and a Depression-era film made in the neighbourhood. Together, they form a portrait of a century of Woolloomooloo street life, populated by a colourful cast of local characters.

Mural diagram

Line drawing of the mural's layout, with numbered green circles marking 6 different people, structures, and objects throughout the busy environment.

Mural key

A woman reminiscing on a balcony in Forbes Street c1940
A composite portrait of Woolloomooloo street life c1886 including a policeman, Chinese residents, a flashy larrikin with his ‘donah’ (sweetheart), a sandwich-board man with a broken window and a paperboy, outside a pub drawn from cartoons by Phil May for the Sydney Bulletin (1886–1889)
Composite image of the corner shop and children at play taken from the film Kidstakes made in Woolloomooloo by Tal Ordell in 1928 on the eve of the Depression
Dolly Brew, who lived in the same house all her life, chatting to a neighbour outside her renovated Housing Commission home
Joey, a young resident, leaping from a balcony
A trio of local children

After John Palmer’s farm and house ‘Woollamoola’ was established, Governor Darling granted land for the establishment of “a high-status area ... which would serve as both example and chastisement to the debased populace of Sydney town”.

The ‘debasement’ of Woolloomooloo followed soon after, as grand homes were converted into boarding houses and housing for workers was built for emerging industries around the wharf.

Popular newspaper accounts and cartoons of Woolloomooloo’s vibrant street life in the late 19th and early 20th century were populated with a theatrical cast of colourful characters. These included the larrikins of the Plunkett Street Push and notorious razor gangs of the 1920s and 30s.

Woolloomooloo’s partial survival as a working-class suburb remains characterised by both the social solidarity and conflicts of neighbourhood life, and by social interaction on streets where cars are now banished.

Beside the Housing Commission’s support for low-income families, the Matthew Talbot Hostel provides shelter and support services for homeless men, boarding houses provide short term accommodation, and renovated private terraces and apartments attract a mobile middle class. In contrast with the deserted spaces of outlying suburbs, the sense of community that survives in the public housing area is the result of resident activism and collaborative town planning between government agencies.

The top section of the mural is a street scene and composite social portrait drawn from the cartoons by Phil May for The Bulletin (1886–1889). The lower section combines images drawn from contemporary life with a corner of street life from the film Kidstakes, set in Woolloomooloo on the eve of the Depression.

A vibrant, multi-level scene shows people in vintage clothing socialising, a man balancing on a fence post, and children with a dog in the foreground. — Photo: Chris Southwood / City of Sydney

Next: Mural 5: FEDFA Green Bans →

View all Woolloomooloo history murals

Designed and painted by local artists Michiel Dolk and Merilyn Fairskye, these 8 murals on the railway pylons in Woolloomooloo preserve and celebrate the suburb’s unique history.