For art’s sake
Once upon a time Oxford St was referred to as ‘the golden mile’. I don’t know how many folks would agree with this now though. I think if we surveyed our readers many would agree it is far from this at the moment.
Oxford St now appears dirty and grey. Perhaps it should be renamed ‘the chewing gum mile’ as the pavements are covered with dirty chewing gum. The gum is on the seats of bus shelters, the traffic light poles and the fences. If you who have sat in it or stepped in it lately you might agree that we should go down the path of Singapore and just ban it.
Here is an old-fashioned idea — they could just throw it in the bin! That in itself causes a major problem because there is a distinct lack of garbage bins on the strip.
Have you been to Taylor Square over the past week or so? No … then you should know that the ‘spider’ art sculpture has been removed and replaced with another art installation.
A tiled wall has been built around the disused toilet block opposite the Oxford Hotel. What puzzles me even more about this tiled wall is that is covered with graffiti.
I am sure the residents and business owners in Darlinghurst and Surry Hills would agree with me — the last thing we need to encourage is more graffiti in our neighbourhoods.
Over the past two weeks, my residence in the ‘City of Villages’ has been tagged 30 times. The Flinders is tagged, the Beresford is tagged all the way to Taylor Square and beyond with many of our own residences now sporting a brand new tag.
Now the City of Sydney has an anti-graffiti hotline. Did you know that if you report the graffiti the hardworking team come and paint over it within 24 hours? Although just last Friday morning the side of my house was repainted and lo and behold by Saturday morning it had been retagged!
I leave you with a question. Is the new installation at Taylor Square a wonderful piece of art or an expensive piece of vandalism that we ratepayers in fact paid for?
Perhaps we should change the name to Sydney, ‘A city of graffiti’.
By ANTHONY LOWE
I was looking at that the other night and wondered “It looks like a classic old toilet block with the ends sticking out for the exit and entrance”
I seriously though it was perhaps created to symbolise how beats influenced gay culture through time..
Sorry.. but it really does look like an old toilet block.