SYDNEY’S PARKS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 April 1926, Page 3

SYDNEY’S PARKS

IMPROVING THE CITY. SYDNEY, March 25. Hyde Park, one of Sydney's very lew parks within tho city with any claims io real beauty, will, it is expected, and fervently hoped, be vacated by the end of the year by those who have been cutting it tip for the underground railway. Although Sydney is not greaLly concerned about ils parks, Hyde Park, when the railway people have finished with it, will afford splendid scope for landscape effects, especially as it will become practically tlio centre of Sydney with the completion of the two underground railway stations cheek by jowl with it. These stations will then have as close neighbours the old Law Courts and historic St. James’s Church, at the top of King street, and the old llvile Park barracks which now house the District and Industrial Courts. In the new lay-out of the whole of Hie area when the railway is completed, it

is not at all improbable that a campaign will be set in motion for the removal ot the gloomy old courts in King street, so gloomy and ill-lighted that one judge has shilled bis quaiteis rather than go blind, for Ibe erection ol new Law Courts on the site ol the present District and Industrial Courts, and for the establishment of i big garden square, with St. James’s Church as -ts central pio-e, where the kil’g . treet Courts no.v stand in all Hioi.' unsightliness. It is difficult, ordinarily, jo let. in the light in divorce eases, hut it is especially difficult in the old Divoce Court there, for it is as dark as a cellar when not artificially lighted, and oven then there is over it an atmosphere of gloom which possibly helps the petitioning parties to look perfectly miserable and aggrieved. Sydney’s parks have been handicapped, not only by the policy which lias been adopted towards them, but also by a shallow soil of poor quality. The Superintendent of Parks (Mr Cooper) has now again raised the question of underground garages m Hyde Park, as a means of removing some at least of the cars from the crowded eitv streets. It is not unlikely that the Council will carry out such a scheme, especially as it will be a good paying proposition.