argylecut

Useful history and explanation of the Argyle Cut including this picture - www.sydneyarchitecture.com/ROC/ROC23.htm . I have a hunch that a photographer was commissioned to photograph The Rocks and Millers Point in c.1901 after the bubonic plague outbreak to capture the squalor and slums before the NSW Government resumed the area for rebuilding (and later the Harbour Bridge). Many similar photographs are showing up in the State Records NSW photostream on Flickr. My idea is that the prints are the documents the relevant Government department required, but the glass negatives from the unnamed photographer eventually became part of the Tyrrell collection.

A print on Flickr from State Records NSW -

Great moments in OH&S - Don't stand on arch (over the Argyle Cut) when it is being demolished.

What a great photo. I wonder if Dr, Bradfield is amongst those standing on the arch?

There is a nice series of photos showing the progress of this demolition: trove.nla.gov.au/picture/result?q=demolish+princes+street... An interesting letter giving some hsitorical background of the arch(es): nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16830131 And a Sydney Morning Herald article from 22/08/1932 mentioning the demolition: nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16799511 This photo shows some of the mass of old bridge stonework already removed above the arch: investigator.records.nsw.gov.au/asp/photosearch/photo.asp... Nice little essay about the arches: nla.gov.au/nla.news-article16740442

BobMeade That is interesting research. It seems the Princes Street bridge was comprised of two separate arches, built years apart. Hence the men were relatively safe to stand on the other half. Are we looking east or west ? That looks a bit like the Garrison Church top right, in which case looking west. Or not?

beachcomber australia Here's an even better OH&S arch moment! Fearless Joe Dobson -

Demolishing Hoffnung's building, Pitt Street, Sydney by Ernie Bowen (15/11/1939) [SLNSW: hood_19948, hood_19949]
"... the crowd in Pitt Street was good. Some crowds wouldn't give you a cheer if you tore the building down with your teeth. But this crowd gave you a clap when you did a good brick. In fact, I don't think I've ever had a better crowd." - Joe Dobson interviewed in Daily News, 16 November 1939. (see Sydney Exposures by Alan Davies, Sydney : State Library of NSW, 1991, p. 50.)

And yes, looking west. That is the Garrison Church as you surmised. The other photographs in the series that BobMeade BobMeade linked make it clearer.

See the comments on the PowerHouse Museum Collection's version of this photo: www.flickr.com/photos/powerhouse_museum/2844603389/

Thanks for letting us know, beachcomberaustralia! Those comments are very interesting.

Reverse view - www.flickr.com/photos/state-records-nsw/3863063529/

This photo was recently determined to be part of the Rocks Resumption photographic survey, the title and date of the image has been changed accordingly Here is a map of the Rocks Resumption area (last one in the sequence)

The Argyle Cut, illustration no. 21 from Relics of Old Colonial Days: A Book of Drawings by Sydney Ure Smith (Sydney: James R. Tyrrell, 1914).