Pyrmont meanderings

While Penultimo’s focus is almost exclusively on our favourite post-industrial inner city suburb, Ultimo, we do make occassional forays into neighbouring ‘hoods. Pyrmont is a great place to amble (or cycle) through …. though you have to look out for speeding Saabs and BMWs, bound to knock you over if you’re not sharp. Here are some happy snaps from our recent shuffles though Pyrmont and Ultimo-borderline areas.

The now disused Terminus Hotel in Pyrmont, obviously named after the tram terminus in the area. The pub was apparently thriving in 1900, and didn’t close all that long ago … (not sure the year). The Terminus remains an extremely popular photograph subject for amateur photographers (just try typing “Pyrmont” and “pub” into Flickr). We aren’t sure why this site hasn’t been redeveloped / reopened, but we’re not complaining, it’s rather lovely having a vine-covered disused pub hanging about.

Michael R. Matthews wrote that the Pyrmont/Ultimo peninsula “once boasted of 25 hotels … Each industrial concern and woolstore had its own associated hotel. Often these were alternative ‘head-quarters’ for the operation.” (Pyrmont & Ultimo, A History, 1982). Shirley Fitzgerald has a list of pub names and locations in Pyrmont between 1877-79. Some of the pub names were fabulous: “Spread Eagle”, “Half Way House”, “Green Tree Hotel”, and the optimistically named “New York”. (Pyrmont & Ultimo Under Siege, 1994). 

From our observations of the outside, the post-industrial refurb of the Goldsbrough Mort building was rather nifty. But what’s it’s like on the inside - anyone know? Is it a bit pokey, a bit institutional … or does it have high ceilings and quality finishes? 

Where the forest meets the sea.  Where the village meets the freeway. 

Getting to the Convention Centre Light Rail station from Pyrmont is more complicated than it ought to be. You have to go up these stairs, across a bridge, into a carpark, and then find a (not well sign-posted) elevator. 

While we maintain our emphatic stance that putting a freeway on top of a suburb is a fairly shit thing to do … we can’t help being impressed at the tectonics of the thing. 

The Convention Centre, masquerading as a futuristic nuclear power plant, in Darling Harbour. 

World War I memorial in Union Square. Sculpted by Gilbert Doble, it has an angel holding a shield that reads: “Their name liveth for evermore”.

This photographs looks a little out of place in this set, doesn’t it? This weedy little wilderness is just a vacant block in Pyrmont, on a hilly block near the Terminus Hotel.