If you squint hard at the bottom of this blog’s header image you can just make out my home. The photo was taken during construction of the Kings Cross tunnel in the late 60s/early 70s. The tunnel destroyed a major swathe of the Cross, which is Sydney’s traditional red-light/bohemian/drug/crime district.

Kings Cross used to be here
Kings Cross used to be here

Today the Cross is largely gentrified. The actual drugs and crime have been replaced by council-sanctioned memorials to drugs and crime, which have been embedded in the stone used in the Kings Cross footpaths. It’s the same grey stone being installed in all the “nice” areas of Sydney.

Kings Cross Footpath Plaque
A plaque to remind you of what’s no longer there
It's a long and bleak walk across that footbridge, and always sad to imagine what was lost to build this massive road.
Google Street View shows the long and bleak walk across that footbridge. It’s always sad to imagine what was lost in order to build this massive road.
A new tunnel required a few more lanes to be squeezed in alongside the old lanes.
In the 2000s the “Cross-City Tunnel” was added alongside the old Kings Cross Tunnel. At the tunnel’s exit the new lanes were somehow squeezed in alongside the old lanes. My home is now 150 metres from 10 lanes of traffic.

Well, that’s my first blog post, just in time for the end of the blogging era 🙂 I’ve started with something small and close-to-home, but I have a handful of broader topics I’m ready to roll with. So read on.