Revisiting Redfern/Waterloo – archivally — 6

Final set! I have heaps more of this part of the world on Redfern Visions and on my photoblog.

“Far more Redfern people live like this, here or over towards the east in Waterloo, than live on the famous Block, and that includes many Indigenous Australians…” — September 29, 2008

South Sydney Uniting Church, Raglan Street. September 21, 2008

Inside South Sydney Uniting Church August 8, 2011

Redfern Oval Sunday morning– May 31, 2009

Revisiting Redfern/Waterloo – archivally — 5

Meant to publish the last two in this Rabbitohs Big Win series yesterday, but my Virgin Mobile Internet had conniptions: “Mobile Broadband been down for almost a day and a half now. Newcastle NSW”; “In past 24 hours Virgin Network suffers serious data distribution and overload problem and no statement from Virgin on that matter many users wasting hours in calling support and no answer or solution to serious Internet problem.”

Fingers crossed today!

Redfern Street November 3, 2008

 

November 3, 2008

“Moving now from the Shopping Village via the back streets towards South Dowling Street, the morning light being one of my motives for the photos.” November 1, 2008

“This is Morehead Street, which I first got to know way back in 1985 when two of my first gay friends from The Britannia Hotel lived there – Philip and Dean.” — October 31, 2008  The Rabbitohs’ Adam Reynolds was born in this street:

By the time South Sydney halfback Adam Reynolds runs out for the grand final on Sunday evening he’ll have offered a silent devotion to his older brother Wayne and thanks for the “hope” he gained as a kid from a football that was hopelessly scuffed from being constantly booted around the mean streets of Redfern and Waterloo.

Tattooed and tenacious, the No.7 grew up a hefty drop-kick away from Redfern Oval in Morehead Street – where the district’s landmark public housing towers dominate the skyline like sore thumbs.

That was before the area became gentrified with artisan bakeries flogging boutique bread for eight bucks a loaf, chic cafes sprouted like wild mushrooms and hipsters peacefully walk the alleys that once ran crimson with blood and white hot with crime.

Although, the old dangers occasionally remain amid this boom of inner-city prosperity. Last April, a man was arrested for bashing a woman to death with a brick in the very street where the two Reynolds brothers kicked and passed their ball as they dreamed of one day wearing the cardinal and myrtle battle colours.

“Yeah, I grew up in Morehead Street, it’s a few hundred metres away from [Redfern Oval] and it was good growing up around here,” Reynolds said before touching on the area’s reputation as a place where residents were either fantastic fighters or fast runners.

“It was definitely a tough area,” he said. “But, in saying that, there was a lot of good people around here and in Waterloo. I have a lot of good friends from here … they look out for you and they mean a lot to you.”…