ten days in chippendale » redfern park http://eatingmywords.net/tendaysinchippendale a mini-residency at serial space Tue, 21 Jun 2011 02:58:53 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.2.38 day three http://eatingmywords.net/tendaysinchippendale/2010/11/day-three/ http://eatingmywords.net/tendaysinchippendale/2010/11/day-three/#comments Thu, 04 Nov 2010 23:56:22 +0000 http://eatingmywords.net/tendaysinchippendale/?p=46 Continue reading →]]> We’ve all heard of the Six O’clock Swill, but I had never heard of the phenomenon of men challenging each other to fight by placing their empty beer glass top down on the bar. Ted McDermott was born in Redfern in 1925 on what was then Castlereagh Street [now called Chalmers Street]. Ted describes with relish watching the fights that went on around his childhood neighbourhood – fights that spilled out of pubs such as the Australian Eleven Hotel and into Redfern Park and surrounding streets. He goes on to speak about a hotel on the corner of Redfern Street and Walker Street called the Albert View, which was nicknamed ‘The Bloodhouse’ because of the “terrific” fights that went on there – maybe five or six fights on at the one time.

[See post to watch Flash video]

Living in ever-gentrifying Redfern as I do now, it’s hard for me to imagine just how industrial the suburb must have been in the ’30s. Ted describes big factories – such as Hunter’s Shoes and F. H. Fauldings – and horses and carts making their way along what is now Chalmers Street.

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