The bad twin of Pyrmont Street

I've spent a couple of days last week painting some small canvases of Pyrmont workers' cottages from the Bond store over the road at 12 Pyrmont Street.
This pair of semi-detached 1860s workers cottages might have started life as identical twins, but have suffered radically different fates over the years.

Starting my painting 'A tale of two cottages'
2012 oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings
They remind me of an old classic movie on daytime TV I watched many years ago. I can't remember its name, or much about the plot or who was in it. All I can recall is that it was about a pair of beautiful twin sisters - one was the epitome of niceness but the other one was evil and came to a sticky and well deserved end.

Plein air painting 'A tale of two cottages'
2012 oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings
While the “good twin”, number 27 Pyrmont Street, has been lovingly renovated several times over the last 30 years, the “bad twin”, number 29 Pyrmont Street, is yet another property owned by the same couple who own Darling Island Bond and Free Store and the Terminus Hotel, and is in a similar state of neglect as the rest of their portfolio.
The “good twin” has an exquisitely applied paint job in the latest fashionable neutral shades. The “bad twin” once boasted a front wall and stoop of glorious Pyrmont yellowblock sandstone, but this had unfortunately been covered with a cheap and nasty coat of plaster and bright blue paint which has faded erratically.

'A tale of two cottages' 2012 oil on canvas 25 x 25 cm
Sold
Enquiries about similar paintings
In the early 1980s, Number 27 was occupied by a couple of eccentric graphic designers. They started the ambitious but ill-fated "Pyrmont Passport" as a protest about the over-development of the Pyrmont Peninsula and the construction of the Casino. After they lost this fight, one of them moved to live in the Birdsville pub to get away from the madness of inner city politics
I haven't yet met the current occupants of Number 27, but the elegant brass plate next to the door is inscribed "Rhubarb" in a funky yet tasteful font. At the moment it seems that it is compulsory for anyone who lives or works in Pyrmont has to be an architect, a web designer or run a restaurant, preferably all three simultaneously. As "Rhubarb" is a type of vegetable, it would be far too literal a name for a restaurant, my money is on it being full of architects or web designers.
Last century, the residents of Pyrmont tended to fit into a few well defined categories. The CSR employees clustered around the western end of John Street, wharfies and ex-wharfies around Point, eastern Bowman and northern Harris Streets, the Darling Island shunters and other railway employees around Murray, Bunn and southern Harris Street and people working around the Fishmarkets on the western side of Bowman street and around Wattle Street. There were few restaurants, but many pubs, all rough as guts. And the "media, cultural and entertainment hub" was provided by the topless barmaids at the Terminus, and the parties thrown by the squatters of Scott and Point Streets.


'A tale of two cottages' 2
2012 oil on canvas 41 x 51 cm
Enquiries about similar paintings
While Number 27 has a neatly rendered step and a pretty little white picket fence,in contrast the facade of number 29 has shown a distressing tendency to fall face down in the gutter like Lindsay Lohan.
Recently an emergency repair of an unflattering bright red brick retaining wall had to be applied to stop the rest of the cottage sliding down the hill.
However, the "bad twin" still has good bones and is possibly not beyond redemption.

'A tale of two cottages' 2

2012 oil on canvas 41 x 51 cm
Enquiries about similar paintings

Every time I paint in Pyrmont Street I fantasize about what could be done by a sympathetic owner, some TLC and vast quantities of time and money......

I finished the smaller canvas only just in time for it to dry for the opening of the Xmas exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery last night!
It had barely been hung before it was sold and taken away by the happy owner. They hadn't even run out of wine and cheese at the opening.
So I'll be back soon on the corner of John and Pyrmont streets to finish a slightly larger canvas.
The Xmas exhibition continues until 31st December 2012
FRANCES KEEVIL GALLERY,
  mob: 0411 821550
info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au

For more information see My Pyrmont page in this blog

Related posts
Looking over the overlooked-Urban decay in Pyrmont
To the Point
Wrong side of the tracks - Darling Island Bond and Free

Pretty vacant

A Tale of two hotels - the Terminus and the Point

Pyrmont Paintings past and present
Paintings of Pink pubs - Painting the Jolly Frog Part 2

Wrong side of the tracks - Darling Island Bond and Free

Recently I have been painting yet another magnificent ruin from the notorious Wakil collection of derelict buildings.
The Wakils, who also own the Terminus Hotel and the old milkbar on the corner of John and Harris Street seem to be obsessed with playing a 30 year long game of Monopoly...with real buildings.
This is the Darling Island Bond and Free Store at 12 Pyrmont Street, Pyrmont.
My first drawings and paintings of this building date from nearly 30 years ago, and the changes are almost imperceptible. On the southern side, windows were cut into the brickwork during the 1980s. The plane trees have grown so that they obscure my view of the row of charming 1880s terraces next door. The residents of 14 Pyrmont St had planted ivy which crept up the wall, but later they cut the ivy and it died off before it could continue its conquest.

Otherwise it is as though I have been sent back in the Tardis to the Pyrmont of the 1980s.

Painting "Darling Island Bond and Free"
en plein air, in front of 27 Pyrmont Street
Sold
Enquiries

Originally this bond store was home of "Australian Thermite Company Pty Ltd" and must have been built either just before the First World War or during its first few months.

As far as I know, the cutting for the Pyrmont Goods Line which curves around the north of this building dates from about 1911-14 (?) so the Bond store would have been built around then. It also has a faint whiff of the utilitarian 'Federation Free' style architecture seen in other red brick storehouses around the Pyrmont peninsula such as the Royal Edward Victualling Yards.

My painting of "Darling Island Bond and Free"
2012 oil on canvas 61 x 51cm
on my french box easel, in Pyrmont Street
Sold
Enquiries

Thermite is a mix of aluminium oxide and another metal oxide (usually iron).

It was used for welding in-place of thick steel sections such as locomotive axle-frames so that the repair can take place without removing the part from where it has been installed.

"Darling Island Bond and Free"
2012 oil on canvas 61 x 51cm
Sold
Enquiries

A thermite weld is spectacular.

Molten metal drops into the mould in a blinding flash.

The still glowing edges are trimmed still glowing and then polished until you can't see the join with the steel rail on either side.

It is a very traditional work process, first patented in the 1890s, but it would still have been the last word in modern technology when 12 Pyrmont Street was first built.

Painting 12 Pyrmont st,

from Jones Bay Road 27-12-2012

Enquiries
Rail under stress can easily buckle.
Thermite can be used for quickly cutting or welding steel such as rail tracks, without requiring complex or heavy equipment.
However, thermite welding must be done carefully as defects are often present in such welded junctions.
Also the rails must remain straight, without dipped joints, which can cause wear on high speed and heavy axle load lines.

P271 'Darling Island Bond and Free,
12 Pyrmont street' 2013
oil on canvas 46 x 46cm
Available

Thermite is not technically classed as an explosive, however anyone who's watched a certain early episode of 'Breaking Bad' will appreciate its force and effectiveness!

Back in those days living next door to a Bond store full of thermite would definitely have qualified as living "on the wrong side of the tracks".

Painting 12 Pyrmont st,
from Jones Bay Road 27-12-2012

I'm not sure when the "Australian Thermite Company" building became the "Darling Island Bond and Free".

It must have been at least a couple of decades after its construction, as I have seen some unfortunately undated photos which must have been taken after 1916, but before 1948, as they show the empty yard to the east of the original 1904 Power Station building before the second power station was completed in 1951.
The faded letters "Darling Island Bond and Free" can still be just made out on the south and east side of the building.

Painting 12 Pyrmont st,
from Jones Bay Road 27-12-2012

I'd like to thank the people who took photos of me while I was painting and sent them to me. Unfortunately their emails bounced and they used nicknames so I don't know how to personally credit them, but I'm grateful as I was far too hot and tired to cross the street to take photos.

I'd also like to thank the occupants of number 14 Pyrmont Street for reviving me with kindness and their excellent coffee while I was painting on an extremely hot day.
I displayed this painting in the Xmas exhibition at the Frances Keevil Gallery
The opening was on Saturday 1st December 2012, from 5-7pm.
The exhibition continued until 31st December 2012
FRANCES KEEVIL GALLERY,
Bay Village, 28-34 Cross Street Double Bay, NSW 2028
Hours M-F 10am-5pm Sat 10 - 4pm Sun 11-4pm
ph/fax: 02 93272475 mob: 0411 821550
info@franceskeevilgallery.com.au
Page of Jane Bennett paintings

For more information see My Pyrmont page in this blog

Related posts

Pretty vacant

A Tale of 2 Pyrmont Hotels

Milky Bar kid - 74 Harris St