The Harbour Read online

  The Reverend Cash took many photos of chimneys being torn off homes, and the walls of terrace houses standing defiantly, only to be toppled. ‘Without fear of correction,’ the Reverend Cash opined, ‘it is safe to say, that no part of New South Wales has undergone such far reaching change within the last sixty years, as Lavender Bay, and Milson’s Point.’

  As the demolition continued, the Bridge design’s options for a suspension, cantilever, or arched structure were further considered. British firm Dorman, Long & Co’s option of an arch with pylons was selected to be Sydney Harbour Bridge. The Bridge and its approaches were expected to cost about £5.5 million. It ended up costing almost double that.

  Work on the Bridge itself began in 1925, but it wasn’t until a few years later that the great arms of steel began reaching out over the harbour. Much of the steel was shipped from Britain, and some came down the coast from the BHP works in Newcastle. The steel was unloaded at a wharf built on the Milsons Point waterfront, then cut and assembled in large workshops that dominated the foreshore. Completed steel sections were lifted by crane onto barges and floated the short distance to the Bridge construction site.

  After the Bridge was completed, the workshop site would become Luna Park. However, in the early days of the project, Bradfield had a radically different vision for the Lavender Bay foreshore. He wanted it to be adorned with a long gracious building, decorated with hanging gardens, lounging in the curve of the bay. All that remains of the industrial site are some of the piers that supported the wharf. But to see those, you have to be sitting low in the water, as I do in Pulbah Raider, so that you can peer into the gloom under the Crystal Palace.

  The harbour also played its part in the building of the pylons that rose like ancient temples on each side of the Bridge. Granite was transported in custom-built ships from quarries further down the coast at Moruya.

  The Reverend Cash trained his camera lens on the preparatory work and the construction. He became a Bridge convert. As Lawrence Ennis, the Director of Construction for the Bridge Contractors, later noted, the Reverend Cash was their most constant visitor, and the only one, outside of those connected with the project, to have unlimited access to the work. In the pursuit of a shot, the Reverend Cash often put his faith in beams and platforms high above the water, acting like one of the workers to portray what they were creating – ‘the greatest pioneering work of its kind ever attempted’.

  The Reverend Cash estimated he took more than 10,000 photos up until 1930 alone, when he published a book titled Parables of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. In images and words, he expressed his admiration for the workers, and he saw the divine in what was being built.

  ‘The Bridge is truly sacramental,’ he declared. ‘It displays, against our southern sky, day by day, a further and progressive visible expression of a faculty, which can be seen and known, in no other fashion.’ By the end of his tome, the Reverend Cash was prophesying, ‘The finished Bridge . . . will bestow upon the people of this land the same gift, as the Sacred Word speaks of God conferring upon the whole world.’

  The monumental geometry of steel and stone was seen as both a marvel of engineering and a work of art. And a muse for artists. Grace Cossington Smith and Roland Wakelin painted the arms as they crept across the sky, ever closer to touching. Through their dynamic paintings, these artists used the Bridge to help carry a modernist vision onto Australian shores. Other artists chronicled the progress of the Bridge in more conservative styles. A series of etchings by Jessie Traill portrayed the ant-like scale and energy of the construction workers. In 1932, Lloyd Rees sketched ‘Sydney Bridge’. In the drawing, a section of the Bridge barges into the picture from the left and works its ways across the top of the image, which is an otherwise bucolic scene. It’s like Rees was showing the industrial age creeping into Arcadia. However, like everyone who saw it, Rees was seduced by the Bridge. He wrote how one night he saw the structure, before its arms were joined, by moonlight, and he was awed by ‘a colossal work of modern sculpture against a background of eternity’.

  Arcadia was changed forever late in the night on 19 August 1930, when the arms met and the arch was formed. The moment was marked with ships blowing their horns. Sydneysiders, who had been observing the Bridge’s construction for years, jumped out of bed when they heard the noise and added to the symphony of celebration, according to one local, by standing in the street and banging on saucepans.

  Flanking the arch were the stone and concrete pylons. They were symbols of stability. But their role was simply symbolic, in part to reassure people, looking at all that knitting of steel and cables, that the Bridge would be safe and sturdy. The architect and writer Robin Boyd thought the pylons played another role, acting as diversions to make all the ugly steel presentable in the public eye.

  ‘The pylon features thus successfully destroyed the visual reality of the steel bridge, while relieving Sydney of the expense of covering the whole arch with stone veneer,’ Boyd offered.

  The Bridge arches were held in place by tension, using massive steel cables. The project itself was riven with tension, with arguments over who designed the Bridge. Yet in the public mind, there was no argument. Bradfield was synonymous with the Bridge.

  In the vernacular of Sydney, the Bridge was already part of the Australian landscape, and not just in a physical sense; it was honoured with nicknames. It was the ‘coathanger’ and, perhaps more respectfully, the ‘Iron Lung’, because at the height of the Great Depression, it had employed up to 1650 workers. For the 300,000 or so residents on the North Shore, this piece of infrastructure may have been connecting them to the 600,000 on the other side of the harbour, but it belonged to them. They called it ‘The North Shore Bridge’. For property speculators and real estate agents, the Bridge meant money. In 1931, Arthur Rickard & Co Ltd advertised land on the North Shore, saying ‘Up goes the last girder, up go land values’ . . . ‘Are you going to be one of the fortunate folk to make big profits from North Shore land?’

  As well as satisfying the prospect of soaring real estate prices, the Bridge fed another Sydney obsession: something to brag about. The media made a point of comparing the Bridge to other landmarks and icons. With its span measuring 503 metres between the pylons, the Bridge was almost three times as long as HMAS Australia. What’s more, the Bridge was twice as high as the General Post Office, and most of the city’s buildings would have slotted into the space between the deck and the water.

  By the time the Bridge was completed, it had rewritten the record books as the largest steel arch in the world, it had reshaped the physical and social landscape of Sydney, and it had become the talk of not just the town but a nation. Even Melbourne lauded Sydney Harbour Bridge. In its editorial, Melbourne’s The Age pointed out how the Bridge was begun when times were good and was completed in the Depression, but the fact it reached the other side was symbolic of how ‘Sydney and the rest of Australia [will] find safe conduct over the Bay of Despond on the Bridge of Faith, whose concrete is the inflexible will of the people and whose steel is reinforced with the national courage’.

  Saturday, 19 March 1932, was a clear day, ideal for an official opening. Detractors argued the dire economic climate meant this was not an appropriate time for big celebrations. But the city was in the mood to celebrate. Hundreds of thousands turned up from near and far. Lennie Gwyther, a nine-year-old boy from Victoria, was so keen to attend, he rode his pony 1000 kilometres from his family’s farm to Sydney. His four-month ride ignited enormous interest in towns worn down by the Depression, and Lennie was such a celebrity by the time he arrived in Sydney, he and his pony were included in the procession across the Bridge. The pageantry was also played out on the harbour, with a flotilla of ships and boats, powered by steam, sail, muscles, whatever could get them on the water.

  Yet it was the theatrics of Captain Francis De Groot at the opening that raised eyebrows and hackles. A member of the right-wing New Guard, De Groot was determined that Labor Premier Jack Lang would not h
ave the honour of opening the Bridge. The New Guard believed a member of the royal family or one of its representatives should cut the ceremonial ribbon. So De Groot cut it, by galloping up on a borrowed horse and slashing the ribbon with a sword. He was promptly detained and his antics were barely noticed on the day. The ribbon was rejoined, and Lang officially cut it, setting off a 21-gun salute. But the rebellious act was reported around the world and has reverberated through the years. De Groot and his sword stunt are probably what most people associate with the Harbour Bridge’s opening.

  Ultimately, bridges aren’t about openings but closing gaps and providing passage. Once the pomp and ceremony passed, the vehicles drove onto the Bridge and crossed the harbour, but at a price. Drivers and passengers, horse riders, even cyclists had to pay a toll. Pedestrians were also to be charged, but the Lang Government dismissed that proposal. Initially, there were far more pedestrians than vehicles on the Bridge each day. Within a couple of years, the number of vehicles had climbed to 12,000 daily. Eight decades on, about 160,000 vehicles use the Bridge each day.

  The Bridge is also often referred to as a dividing line between the inner and outer harbours, as though the water and all that lives in it suddenly change as they pass under the deck. The State Government’s Department of Primary Industries, for instance, advises no fish or crustaceans caught west of the Bridge should be eaten, because of contaminants, mainly from the Parramatta River. Gavin Birch, who, as an environmental chemist, has been studying the harbour’s health through its sediment for about thirty years, reckons the Bridge is an understandable threshold.

  Generally speaking, Gavin, an Adjunct Associate Professor from the University of Sydney’s School of Geosciences, points out there are physical differences either side. The harbour on the seaward side of the Bridge broadens. The character of the water and the sediment changes as the harbour approaches the Heads. The impact of the sea, including salinity and wave action, contributes to those changes. Then there’s the human impact; testing has indicated the harbour west of the Bridge is generally more contaminated.

  ‘It’s not a fence or wall, but the Bridge is a convenient threshold, and that thinking flows through to regulations,’ Gavin says. However, dioxins dumped by industry many years ago into Homebush Bay have been carried from the west and been detected east of the Bridge.

  ‘So you mustn’t think that all contaminants stop at the Bridge.’

  A statement in itself, the Bridge has also been used to convey all manner of messages. Crowds have marched across it in celebration or commemoration, such as the estimated 300,000 who walked on the Bridge in 2000 in support of Aboriginal reconciliation. It has held the pounding feet of runners, including Olympians competing in the Sydney 2000 marathon. Some have leapt from the Bridge. In the first year of the Bridge’s operation, thirty-nine people jumped off, prompting the erection of a protective barrier. A few have climbed its frame in protest or to seek attention. Millions more have legitimately clambered to the top of the arch, with guides from commercial operator BridgeClimb.

  While you could pay up to a few hundred dollars to climb the arch in a tour group, you can walk along the pedestrian path on the deck, weaving amid the power-walking commuters and joggers, for free. You have to peer through the mesh of the protective barrier, but even so, the view to the east, over the Opera House and the headlands towards the Macquarie Lighthouse near South Head, is stunning. Looking down, ferries scurry like insects across the harbour, and, most afternoons, a cruise liner pulsating with holidaymakers passes underneath, its funnels seemingly close to scratching the Bridge’s underside. For a few moments, you can almost see the excitement in the passengers’ eyes. No moment is left unrecorded on the Bridge. As the unblinking eye of mounted security cameras watch those on the Bridge, the people being observed snap their own images. Watching tourists perform camera-acrobatics, manoeuvring their devices through the thin gap between the protective barriers, I wonder how often their captured memories end up tumbling through the air into the water more than 50 metres below. When the Bridge was being built, something more noxious was tossed into the water. With no portable toilets, the labourers would use bags. At least once, the toilet bag landed not in the harbour but splatted on the deck of a ferry.

  WHILE THE Bridge offers a platform from which to view Sydney, on at least one night of the year the eyes of the world are on the Bridge.

  The New Year’s Eve fireworks display is to Sydney what bread and circuses were to Imperial Rome. No matter how much money has been wasted by politicians on other things in the previous twelve months, all is forgiven as we pack around the harbour, and on it, to watch millions of dollars more bloom into meadows of psychedelic dandelions in the night sky, before they sputter and trail away.

  Yet the greatest display doesn’t require a severe craning of the neck; it spurts and spills from the structure of the Bridge. It is known as ‘the Bridge effect’. And the effect, basically, is to reduce conversations to ‘ooh-ah’. Waterfalls of light cascade from the deck to the water, tufts of colour explode off the summit, and, after weeks of guessing, a symbol for the theme of the New Year’s Eve show is revealed in dazzling fashion on the eastern arch.

  The most moving symbol, for me, was one word that danced to life across millennia. Perhaps it was the circumstances in which I saw it lit up that gave the symbol such meaning and hope. For New Year’s Eve 1999–2000, my wife and I were at the Governor-General’s Sydney residence, Admiralty House, on Kirribilli Point. It was perhaps the best location on earth to see in the new year. I was working, but it felt like a ‘pinch yourself’ privilege. I was there to cover a party being thrown by Admiralty House’s then-residents, Governor-General Sir William Deane and Lady Deane. Being the generous souls they are, Sir William and Lady Deane were hosting a ‘sleepover’ for young organ transplant recipients, along with their families, kids waiting for an organ, medical staff, and the loved ones of donors. The Governor-General and his wife sat on the floor and talked with their little guests. I remember when one of the children thanked the Governor-General for having them over to his house, Sir William smiled – and he has perhaps the gentlest smile you would ever wish to see – and replied this was not his house. It was everybody’s house. And so it was, at midnight, we were standing on the lawns of everybody’s house, looking at the Bridge, when that one word appeared: Eternity. The word ignited in the handwriting style of Arthur Stace, returned soldier, recovering alcoholic and devout Christian. Stace had tagged the city’s footpaths and walls with ‘Eternity’ every night for years from the 1940s until his death two decades later.

  At that moment, as the nocturnal graffito of Stace lit up the face of a brand new year, I felt anything was possible. Sydney Harbour Bridge was illuminated with how I felt. But not even ‘Eternity’ lasted long. Within a few weeks, the lights were off, and people were already plotting where they would plant themselves for the ephemeral pleasure of watching the 2000–2001 fireworks.

  Each year, expert pyrotechnics crews install the fireworks onto barges and into firing points on city landmarks. The process is painstaking and time-consuming. Almost as painstaking and time-consuming as it is for those who claim the prime positions to watch the display. Days out from the fireworks, the keenest of souls move in with tents and supplies. The first rule of life by Sydney Harbour on New Year’s Eve is the same as every other day of the year: those closest to the water win. One of the best locations to feel like a winner on New Year’s Eve is around McMahons Point.

  Mid-morning on 31 December 2015, I paddle under the thrusting finger of Blues Point Tower and around the tip of the peninsula, only to be confronted by a thick crust of humanity – and tents – along the shore. There must be thousands already packed in here.

  The crush of people intensifies as I paddle around the curve of Lavender Bay. Some are in such precarious spots, I worry they’ll end up in the drink. No one seems concerned. A few are already well and truly into the drink. Many are reading, resting, observing –
and happy to wave at a passing kayaker and yell out, ‘Happy New Year!’

  ‘Good day for a paddle,’ a young man hollers. ‘Good day for camping,’ I shout back. ‘How long have you been here?’ ‘Since Tuesday!’ Today is Thursday. He smiles triumphantly, as though he is about to win a marathon. Which, in a way, he is.

  Streaming down the harbour is an ever growing procession of boats, all heading for a favourite spot to moor and wait. In Lavender Bay, I see craft from far and wide, including a yacht flying the Canadian flag. Close by are three blokes on the deck of a sailboat named Priority II.

  Priority II has ticked off Priority 1: securing a fantastic location. The trio has an uninterrupted view across the water to the Bridge, about half a kilometre away. Charlie Jensen owns the boat, a 30-footer in good nick. He’s from Carcoar, about three and half hours drive west of Sydney. He keeps his boat moored on the harbour and comes down about once a month to go sailing. Also on board are his older brother Barry, who is from the city of Orange, and their mate, Les Fordham, from Newcastle. They sailed into the bay this morning. This is the third year they’ve moored early for the fireworks. Previously, they were on the other side of the Bridge off the southern shore, at Farm Cove. They’re surprised more boaties haven’t turned up here – yet.

  We yarn for about an hour, when Les says, ‘Want a beer?’ ‘No. Yes,’ I reply. Charlie looks up. ‘The sun’s over the yardarm.’ And so bobbing in my kayak next to Priority II, riding the jellyrolls of water sent our way by the passing boats, I sip their beer, as we look at the view, and imagine what the night will hold. We think no further ahead.

  As I prepare to paddle away, Charlie invites me to return later. So, just after the 9pm ‘family’ fireworks display, I follow the flow of people down the hill to Lavender Bay. Wendy Whiteley’s Secret Garden is even less of a secret tonight. It’s packed with revellers, seeking vantage points amid the foliage. At the bottom of the steps is a long queue of people, standing patiently. The line leads to the solitary toilet block on the foreshore. The jetties are barnacled with bodies who have claimed a skerrick of deck space in readiness for the fireworks. I pick my way along a jetty, where Charlie is waiting in his little rubber boat. I step gingerly aboard and feel water seep into my trainers. ‘Here,’ he says, handing me two glow sticks, one orange, one green. ‘Hold the orange one in your left hand, and the green one in your right. Navigational lights. Now we’re legal!’