Talk:Ashfield, New South Wales
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Missing sections:
- Aboriginal culture
- Population statistics
- Local events
Other things needed:
- A lot of polishing.
Contents |
[edit] Wanted photos
Clock tower on the Peak Freen biscuit factory (now Bunnings Warehouse).Tower on Norman Self's Amesbury in Alt Street.- St Vincent's Catholic Church. A substantial and highly dramatic church, built over the period 1895-1907. Designed by Catholic Architects Sheenin and Hennessy.
[edit] Separate page for the Local Government Area
As per discussion at Talk:List of Sydney suburbs, I have created a separate page for the Municipality of Ashfield, the Local Government Area. -- Ianblair23 05:44, 30 August 2005 (UTC)
[edit] Politics
Politically Ashfield has been a traditional stronghold of the Labor party. Since the late 1990s and especially after 2004 Local Government in Ashfield is experiencing a shift away from the Labor to smaller political entities such as the Greens and other miscellaneous Independents. Many residents argue that this derives from ratepayer dissatisfaction with unsympathetic highrise developments in the area, much of which has been done with the blessing of the Labor Party dominated Ashfield Council. The present political make up of the Ashfield Municipal Council is: Labor Party - 4 Greens - 3 Independents - 3 Liberal (conservative) Party - 1
[edit] First intentional use of a parachute in Australia
According to a plaque set in the ground, the park at the corner of Frederick and Church Streets (then known as the Ashfield Sports Ground or similar??) was the launching point of the first "deliberate", "intentional" use of a parachute in Australia. Presumably there had been unplanned or emergency use of parachutes prior to December 8, 1888, on which date J.T. Williams ascended 6000 feet in a balloon and jumped out on purpose. To celebrate the centenary of the achievement, an Australian parachuting champion repeated the jump, and the Ashfieldians put up the complicated plaque that can be seen today. - Juliannechat 5 April 2006
[edit] P. L. Travers
The author of five volumes of Mary Poppins stories lived in Ashfield while she was a schoolgirl, and her most famous character was briefly commemmorated there.
"In her long life, spent in London, the United States and Dublin, Travers kept her Australian origins hidden. But when she died in 1996, much of her Australian life was revealed."
-- Valerie Lawson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, March 13, 2004
"On July 28 vandals attacked the Poppins statue in Ashfield Park, leaving only the feet. The rest of the body lay on the ground, with much damage to the legs and umbrella. The bits are now in the council depot and will be repaired by a local craftsman."
-- Valerie Lawson, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, August 9, 2005
The following information about "Travers" is from Valerie Lawson's Out Of The Sky She Came, Hodder 1999 (British title Mary Poppins She Wrote).
Travers was born Helen Lyndon Goff in Maryborough, QLD, on 9 August 1899, and spent her childhood there and in Bowral. In 1912 she became a boarder at Normanhurst Private Girls School in Ashfield. A few years later her mother rented a cottage at 17 Pembroke Street, Ashfield, so that she could once again live at home and her younger sisters could also attend Normanhurst. She chose her new name, Pamela Lyndon Travers, when she began work as a journeyman actress and journalist. After she left Australia in 1924 Travers divided her time between England, Ireland, and America and most of her readers did not know about her Australian past.
According to Lawson's research, "Lyndon was never, in her own mind, an Australian, always an Irish woman with a Scots mother." In addition to tracing the ways that the Mary Poppins stories used autobiographical material (e.g., Travers' father had presided over a bank failure!), Lawson thoroughly reviews all of Travers' writing, and her long involvement with Irish writers (AE, Yeats, etc.) and a succession of mystical teachers (Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Krishnamurti and others), and various intense friendships with both men and women. Lawson also analyses Travers' involvement with and complex reactions to the Disney treatment of Mary, which made her a wealthy woman. Travers protected her privacy in life but chose to sell moderately revealing letters and papers to Sydney's Mitchell Library.
During her lifetime Travers gave money for a statue of Mary Poppins to be erected in New York City's Central Park, but there were almost no other donations and the project had to be abandoned. (All of the preceding information is from Lawson. See the P. L. Travers topic for more Lawson links, including one about Lawson's dispute with New Yorker staff writer Caitlin Flanagan, whom Lawson alleges used Lawson's original Travers research without attribution, in a recent profile.) - Juliannechat 23 June 2006
Just drove past the Mary Poppins statue and it's back in place. Will get a photo. - Juliannechat 30 September 2006
[edit] Mei Quong Tart
More on the pioneering Sydney businessman Mei Quong Tart. Per CHIA, "While seen by the non-Chinese community as a leader of the Chinese the Chinese community was divided in their views and support of him." ("http://www.chia.chinesemuseum.com.au/biogs/CH00021b.htm") His former mansion (on Arthur Street) was mostly pulled down this summer, but a tower segment is being kept, to be incorporated into a new aged care facility named for him. There's also a bust of him near the railway station. Tart died of pleurisy contracted while recovering from a beating that was almost certainly a hate crime. - Juliannechat 5 April 2006
[edit] Population
Does the population of 40,000 refer to the municipality, rather than the suburb? Is it an error? Even a very dense placce would be hard pressed to have so many.ßlηguγΣη | Have your say!!! - review me 06:30, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
- Agreed! I've removed this incorrect figure. Anyone know the population then? --Alexxx1 (talk/contribs) 12:39, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
- I just searched at the ABS and got 20681 from http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@cpp.nsf/DetailsPage/SSC110762001?OpenDocument&tabname=Details&prodno=SSC11076&issue=2001&num=&view=&#Basic%20Community%20Profile 99of9 04:53, 28 April 2006 (UTC)
