Frog Hollow - slum clearance

Slums are cleared the world over: it is but one weapon the powerful ruling classes wield against the poor and the ill-educated. It happened in Paris with the Haussman redesign in the 1880s; it happened in Sydney as a consequence of the Royal Commission of 1909-1911. Oxford Street was cleared and widened. William Street was cleared and widened. Broadway was cleared and widened. And each time, the working-class grafters were dispossessed. Frog Hollow was inhabited by colourful identities like Samuel 'Jewey' Freeman and Kate Leigh, by rampaging groups like 'The Riley Street Gang', 'Forty Thieves', and 'Big Seven'. But the "stinking labyrinth of narrow, dark and airless alleys and higgeldy-piggeldy, jammed together hovels" that constituted Frog Hollow, was razed by the City Council in the second half of the 1920s. However, the area was also home to citizens like James O'Hears. James ran a baker's shop on the corner of Riley Street and Albion Street, diagonally across from the escarpment that was Frog Hollow. He lived above the shop with his mother, Margaret, who died from a long and painful illness in 1871. He himself departed this world in 1891. Yet his name lives on. It is very Australian to give directions thusly: 'Find the stairs near O'Hears baker shop, and that is where I'll be. The stroke of midnight, mind, not a second later ... ' Try as I may, I have not found a construction date for O'Hear's Stairs - not even from its Heritage Listing. However, within that listing this was pertinent: "The economic boom of the 1830s acted as the necessary catalyst for residential development in Surry Hills with the original allotments being initially subdivided into villa estates. It wasn’t until the gold rush boom of the 1850s (that) the Riley Estate finally become available, and along with the Fosterville Estate, provided a glut of land for housing the working class populations." So, unilaterally, I settle upon the year 1853, which I had read during my research but can no longer find. The Sands Directory has O'Hear with a bakery in Riley Street as early as 1861.

A note on the two historic photographs. They were both sourced from the City of Sydney Image Library. The first one is dated 1928, the second is dated 1950. They both show O'Hears Stairs, although in the first one you require keen eyes: top left-hand quadrant. Even in the second photo, many of the slum houses are still standing.

Frog Hollow - the present

"Frog Hollow" is a wee slip of land, with a massive reputation for sleeze and degradation. Although it has been updated and pasteurised by the council, it is slowly slipping back into a place one is hesitant to frequent even in broad daylight. It is on the corner of Albion and Riley Streets in Surry Hills. And yes, in the middle of the 19th century, when shacks were first appearing in this muddy hollow, the echo of frogs resounded up the slopes.

This area is linked with the 'razor' gangs of Sydney in the period from 1890 till close to 1940. The link is emphasised by television producers because it suits their purpose. However, looking at the old photographs and reading the local histories, it was an area of immense poverty and squalor, which leads to petty vice from many denizens. But the biggest vice is poverty, both of mind and of pocket. Here are two views of the new stairs - built in 2007 - leading up to the corner of Albion and Riley. The image between is from the City of Sydney archives, and shows a view from the same corner back down Albion Street. It is dated 1938. So much for all the housing being cleared in 1925. Some was, as I will show tomorrow, when we take a look at O'Hears Stairs.

Frog Hollow swirls in the past

It's a steep lift out of Frog Hollow, up the dog-legged crannies of Little Riley Street, over Reservoir Street, where the incline gets murd'rous. Neither couple was talking much; muttering was more like it. Corner of the mouth stuff. Accusational. The 'shes' struggled a bit more than the 'hes'; with the incline, but also with keeping emotions in check. I wondered if they had any idea what this patchwork of lanes was like eighty years earlier. What the working class rif-raf got up to down in that there hollow, from whence they had all come. But each couple went their separate ways, and as the sounds of their footsteps reverberated more softly, I took a gulp of air and brought the faded old photographs of life in the area to the front of my mind.

The Riley Street Gang c. 2012

The Riley Street Gang, legging it with the groceries, down Little Albion Street, away from Frog Hollow. Surry Hills, Sydney. The original Riley Street Gang was a bunch of not-very-nice-people who made a living 'on the game' of various sorts, c. 1930s.