THE MODERN SYDNEY.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 November 1919, Page 12

THE MODERN SYDNEY.

ITS MARVELLOUS EXPANSION. , (Sydney Correspondent Wellington Post.) The other day an American picture* producer arrived in Sydney, together with a staff of experts, including a scenario writer, under engagement to a company that has been formed to produce moving pictures in Australia; and a remark made by this gentleman is of more than passing interest. He said: "Sydney is a wonderful city. Here you have London and Paris, New York and Chicago, Naples and Venice, all in one. I£ I want to have any of these cities for the setting of a picture I can get all that I require in Sydney. You have streets of all kinds, "broad and narrow, you have buildings of every conceivable kind, large and small, towers and steeples. Vim have the old English style and the new American style; you have magnificent shops. You have a most beautiful hnrbor and in exquisite river. You have beaches that will rival any in the world. What is there in any other city in the world that you have not got in Sydney?" As far as I am aware, these remarks have not been published, but there they are, as he made, them. And indeed it is true to a very large extent. But it is not for the purpose of comparing Sydney with other cities of the world that this paragraph is written, but rather because the remarks quoted are sufficient to cause une to pause a moment and reflect on the modern Sydney. It is expanding in a marvellous manner. Its growth is phenomenal. Its population is within striking distance of the million mark, and for all the rapid building that is going on—building that is more noticeable, perhaps, to one who has been away for a year or two, than to the citizen wiio has remained at home-—there is still an insufficiency of houses to meet the demand. And one is struck, too, by the American* isation of Sydney. The' style of architecture for residential purposes is chiefly American, and where it is not American it is Swiss. Apart from the ordinary workman's dwellings, beautiful homes are going up everywhere, but particularly along the seaside—at Bondi, Coogee, and other such places. As for the shops, some of them will compare with any in the world, and the people of Sydney are proud of them. The Union Steamship Company is putting up a magnificent eleven-storey building in George-street, and there are other fine buildings in course of construction. And everywhere one sees the building of great modern flats—another illustration of the Americanisation of Sydney. The skyline of Sydney to-day pronounces this queen city' of Australia as one of the great cities of the world. And for . the rest, its streets are improving greatly—are ■ not only being widened, as a result of the policy of re-modelling and wiping out the slum areas, but are becoming a joy to motorists to drive over—and its parks are being re-made and brought into line with the open spaces of the great cities of the world. The beautification of this wonderful city is proceeding with its growth, and they who dwell therein may well be proud of it.