Improvement work continues at the Redfern Station to provide all commuters with better accessibility and connection between stations. Excavation, piling and installation work are ongoing at Platforms 1 and 2/3, as well as sections of North Eveleigh and Marian Street.
Noise and temporary closures of pedestrian access will be expected as materials and equipment are brought in and out of the site. However, disruptions may also arise based on current public health orders.
In July, Redfern Station construction activities were paused for at least two weeks in accordance with the NSW Government lockdown orders. Upon the resumption of work, all people at the worksite have been ascribing to the state’s COVID-19 requirements and will continue to observe these safety and preventive measures.
Meanwhile, upgrades to the Redfern Station in the following weeks will deliver these outcomes:
Remaining bridge beam installation across Platforms 1 to 6
Service route and drainage installation across platforms
Excavation and piling on Platform 1
Relocation work on the heritage building on Platform 1
Changes to overhead wiring
Various signalling works
Delivery and removal of plant, equipment and materials
Photo Credit: Transport for NSW
By September, the construction of a new shared zone on Little Eveleigh Street will begin, impacting the thoroughfare between Wilson Street and Ivy Lane. Powerlines may be temporarily shut down as modifications will be undertaken in collaboration with Ausgrid.
Completion of the Redfern Station upgrades is earmarked for 2022. For more information and enquiries about this project, email projects@transport.nsw.gov.au or phone 1800 684 490.
Waterloo-based fitness studioRetrosweat just launched a digital version of their famous VHS Workout Club, a collection of ‘80s dance workouts–perfect for those who are looking for the best online workout classes to try at home.
Retrosweat’s workouts are inspired by the original VHS workout made famous by the biggest ‘80s stars, such as David Bowie, The Pointer Sisters, Prince, and The Police. They offer weekly live classes, with a schedule suitable for all global time zones, ages and fitness levels.
Retrosweat is created and founded by Shannon Dooley whose mission is to make dance and movement easy and accessible to everybody. It combines Ms Dooley’s love of iconic and timeless pop music, and vintage fashion.
The team at Retrosweat (Photo credit: Retrosweat/Facebook)
The exercises are recommended for those who want to improve their posture and flexibility, tone their entire body, strengthen their heart, and burn tons of calories.
Joining allows you to access the library, with options such as yoga and low-impact exercises. For more information about their virtual dance classes, visit Retrosweat’s website or check out their social media pages.
A new 18-storey residential development on Gibbons Street in Redfern, which has been built on the former site of the City of Sydney depot, has 40 social and 120 affordable housing units ready for occupancy.
The residential tower is under St George Community Housing (SGCH), which will also establish its new office on the Redfern site.
Centrally located near shopping centres and transportation depots, the SGCH community housing has received an 8.3 rating with the Nationwide House Energy Rating Scheme. Designed by DKO Architecture, the dwelling offers mixed one, two, and three-bedroom units with 27 homes for people with disabilities.
Because of the location of the residential tower, 25 percent of the units are also meant for Aboriginal families. To reflect the cultural and historical significance of the location, the Gibbon Street building has incorporated the work of Joe Hurst, an Indigenous artist who is aligned with the Boomali Aboriginal Artists Cooperative.
The tower has a rooftop garden for residents to enjoy the view as they gather and socialise. A playground on the ground floor enables the kids to have plenty of outdoor time in a safe and secured environment.
The development, however, doesn’t have any parking spaces since it’s within walking distance to the Redfern train station. There are 92 bike spaces directly outside the lobby.
Gibbons Street is environmentally sustainable with a 50kW solar array, roof-mounted fans in all apartments, and double-glazed windows that can adapt to changing thermal qualities throughout the year.
“I have watched Gibbons Street being built from the ground up and from the start of construction, it’s been really heart-warming knowing that people from my [Aboriginal] community might be placed there,” Tevita, one of the residents said.
The RAB Movement, a newly-launched Redfern advocacy group, has discovered a more convenient way to source fresh produce supplies to donate to families in need across Sydney during the lockdown.
Founder Lisa Mundine, a Wiradjuri/Bundjalung woman born in Redfern, has been using Bright Sparge’s Share And Share Alike app to ensure the deliveries of food hampers to 300 families every week so they won’t have to worry about their next meal.
Ms Mundine said that the Share And Share Alike app, developed by Charbel Yamouni in 2020 due to the long lockdown in Melbourne, has been a promising tool as it allowed The RAB Movement to provide for more people despite the extended restrictions in NSW.
Her advocacy, which was established in June 2021 or weeks before Sydney entered into a lockdown, relieves families of the pressures of thriving in this challenging period.
Ms Mundine acknowledges that their work is not the whole solution to the problem of food security but extending support is their small way of keeping vulnerable communities optimistic. In the last two decades, she has also help network Indigenous Australian people and businesses for employment opportunities, projects, or supplies.
On the other hand, Yamouni, who also distributes food supplies and basic items like clothes and toiletries, was motivated to come up with the app to reduce the problems of distributing perishable goods. He said that many establishments are willing to donate or support but do not have the logistics for distribution and collection.
The app partners with both donors and charity groups to take care of the logistics across the country. To date, the initiative has matched over 2,000 donations for 160 charities, providing another solution to curbing food waste.
To learn about the app or support their advocacies, follow Bright Sparge’s updates on Facebook and keep tabs of The RAB Movement’s activities on Instagram.
After years of hard work, Jess Fox, a student in the Elite Athletes program at the University of Sydney in Camperdown, has clinched her first Olympic gold medal for the inaugural C1 canoe slalom category at the Tokyo Olympics.
The powerful paddler has been chasing the gold since her debut at the 2012 London Olympics but her tough grind started back in 2000 when her father moved the family from Marseille in France to Sydney.
Here are five interesting things to know about Jess Fox:
1. Canoeing is in her blood.
Born in Marseilles in 1994, Jess comes from a family of paddlers. Her parents, Richard Fox and Myriam Fox-Jerusalmi, both competed in the Olympics as canoeists. Her dad represented Team Great Britain in 1992 and her mother was in the 1996 Games for Team France, where she won a bronze medal.
Jess’s sister, Noemie, and aunt, Rachel Crosbee, are both slalom canoeists as well and have won medals at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships. Rachel was in the 1992 Olympics with Richard.
At 11, Jess didn’t want to become a canoeist but an accident left her with a broken arm. Her doctor advised that paddling will help with her body’s rehabilitation. From there, she was hooked.
To achieve her goal for the gold, Jess trained with her mother in Penrith, where the family is based.
2. Jess Fox has been raking medals in local and international competitions since 2010.
At 16, Jess was named the Junior Canoeist of the Year by the Australian canoeing sports governing body. Two years later, she was the 2012 Australian Canoeing Athlete of the Year and was awarded the AIS Sport Performance Award Female Athlete of the Year in 2018.
Jess nabbed the gold at the ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships C1 class five times — 2013, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019 — and twice for the K1 class in 2018 and 2019.
She is the first woman in the history of canoeing sports to win at two classes (C1 and K1) in one year at the U23 World Championship in Penrith and at the World Championships in the USA in 2014.
The gutsy athlete also made history as the first woman to win back-to-back Olympic medals for canoeing. Just days before her C1 win in Tokyo, she won bronze at the K-1 Canoe slalom category.
3. She is number one in academics, too!
A graduate of Blaxland High School, Jess was at the top of the PDHPE (Personal Development, Health and Physical Education) curriculum for New South Wales in 2011 and had an ATAR (Australian Tertiary Admissions Rank) score of 99.1. She was the Dux of Blaxland in her senior year.
She took up communications at the University of Sydney. She has also attended Melbourne’s Swinburne Online for her degree in Bachelor of Social Science major in Psychology.
4. The sports star is a dog lover.
Her social media platforms are filled with various dog selfies. Whilst training for the Tokyo Olympics, Jess fostered Pink, a greyhound, who has helped her improve her speed and agility. Pink has also been a calming presence around Jess. The dog clears her mind, which is also an integral part of an athlete’s training.
However, because she has been training and traveling frequently for the competitions pre-COVID, Jess is not yet able to commit to being a pet parent full time. Her goal, however, is to adopt a dog permanently when she retires from competing.
In 2017, she temporarily ditched her paddle for a laddle and competed in Australia’s version of Hell’s Kitchen in 2017, where she nearly perfected a chicken skewer with curry powder and spring onion dish. She finished in 7th place.
Miss the feeling of sitting down inside a restaurant to share a satisfying culinary experience with your family or friends over a bottle of wine? If you’re tired of the usual takeaway, Bistro St Jacques in Redfern has revived its “Bistro on a Bike” food delivery service during Sydney lockdown.
The French bistro along Pitt Street will bring a French-inspired feast to your home via a provincial Parisienne-inspired bicycle with cute baskets.
For $75, you can enjoy a set three-course meal that includes the entrée, main dish, and dessert, or you can pick á la carte from the restaurant’s lockdown menu.
Photo Credit: Bistro St Jacques/Facebook
Highlights
Bistro St Jacques reactivates its Bistro on a Bike delivery service.
For $75, you can enjoy a three-course French culinary dining experience at your home or choices from their á la carte menu.
Delivery covers areas around the five-kilometre radius.
Orders must be placed 24-hours in advance.
Bistro St Jacques offers some of its highly-recommended staples for delivery, such as the pan-roasted duck breast with swede and potato puree, red cabbage jam and spiced honey red wine, or the popular steak-frites with organic potatoes and a choice of sauce option for Café de Paris butter or Poivrade (pepper).
Photo Credit: FacebookPhoto Credit: Facebook
Choices of cheese and desserts are also available and should be complemented with wine. (See Wine List)
“Most of our wines are made by small handcraft producers who practice organic and or biodynamic growing and range from ‘classical’ to a more ‘natural, low fi’ hand-off approach in the shed.”
Photo Credit: Facebook
Bistro on a Bike also serves daily specials and two types of banquet meals for groups of six people so don’t forget to ask about these offers when you place your orders by calling 0478 705 704.
The restaurant delivers at dinner time every Wednesday through Sunday within the five-kilometre of Redfern. Orders must be placed at least 24 hours a day in advance.
Have you passed by McEvoy and Elizabeth Streets in Waterloo lately? You may have noticed a striking mural on the wall outside of the Our Lady of Mount Carmel primary school. That’s Eileen O’Connor, Sydney’s very own saint-in-waiting.
Artist Danny Mulyono is behind the artwork to honor Ms O’Connor on the 100th anniversary of her death. The artist was commissioned by Fr Paul Smithers, the parish priest of the Catholic Community of Sydney City South.
The church community is hoping to raise more awareness about Ms O’Connor’s contribution to Sydney following a movement in February 2020 for her canonisation.
“Eileen demonstrated an intentional faith in Jesus and despite her physical disabilities she established Our Lady’s Brown Nurses for the Poor,” Fr Smithers said.
“In our area, we have murals of talented footballers and political satire, I thought there was a room for a mural to raise awareness of a local hero who will potentially be our next Australian Saint. Yes, people certainly notice it and I hope it will become a talking point.”
Reports cited that the Sydney Archdiocesan has been investigating evidence of Ms O’Connor’s “holiness and a life of heroic virtue” in her path to sainthood. If canonised, she will become the second Australian saint after Mary MacKillop.
The saint-in-waiting, born in 1892, developed a spinal disease after a pram accident when she was 3 years old. Despite her perennial nerve pain, Ms O’Connor committed her life to service and kept her Catholic faith strong. She was a devotee of the Blessed Virgin Mary and experienced an apparition when her family moved from Melbourne to Coogee. It has been said that the Blessed Virgin Mary encouraged Ms O’Connor to embrace her physical suffering and do good for others.
Eileen O’Connor was the driving force behind the Our Lady’s Nurses for the Poor. She received support from Fr Edward Gell, Fr Edward McGrath, and other benefactors to build parish schools in Sydney.
Ms O’Connor’s leadership also shaped the Sydney congregation. However, her life was cut short at 28 years old due to tubercular transverse myelitis of the spine in 1921.
Sixteen years after she was buried, a move was made to transfer her remains to the Our Lady’s Home in Coogee from the Randwick Cemetery. Unofficial reports stated that her body “was found to be incorrupt.”
When going to a bar is not an option during a lockdown, the best thing to do is to tap some of the city’s best boozy deliveries. Fortunately, there are a few establishments in and around Redfern that offer this convenience and they have some great cocktails in bottles as well!
First on the list is the Redfern Surf Club on Botany Road. This bar was one of the first establishments to launch its innovative cocktail party bags during the pandemic first wave in mid-2020 with flavours like Watermelon Margarita or Life is Peach that come in an easy pour and no mess packaging. Just pop these cocktails in the freezer and it’s ready to drink in a few hours.
Redfern Surf Club also delivers cocktails in bottles, freshly made and ready to pour. Their bestselling products are the Spicy Margarita, Espresso Martini and Negroni. Make sure to order in advance as the supplies run out fast.
Photo Credit: Facebook
Re-
The newly-opened bar and restaurant on Locomotive Street has introduced new flavours on their drink list as Sydney’s lockdown has been extended for another week. Take a pick from these exciting concotions — the Orchard Gimlet (Coconut Oil Gin, Strawberry and Peppermint Gum, Green Apple Whey), the Cherry Ripe Old Fashioned (Plantation 3 Star, Cacao, Cacoa Butter, Raspberry, Peach Stone) and 50 Shades of Gruyere (Mushroom Cognac, Four Pillars Bloody Shiraz, Gruyere, Sweet Vermouth).
Re- is also widening their delivery coverage within the nine kilometres around South Eveleigh and could even ship interstate for online orders. If you don’t need a drink but you need a gift idea, they’ve got heaps of cocktails and wine for drink lovers with discerning taste buds.
Photo Credit: Facebook
PS40
About 3.5 kilometres away from Redfern is PS40, known for elevating the way Sydneysiders enjoy their booze. For this “snap lockdown,” PS40 is offering a special edition “snap pack box” that contains three 250ml bottles to make your boozy deliveries easier — just click to order!
Though more of a deli and bistro than a bar, this shop in Newtown, which is about an 11-minute car ride through Abercrombie Street in Redfern, has a Sydney drink-lover must-have: the Continental Deli martinis in tin can and the Cosmopoli-Tin (vodka, cranberry, sherry, orange liqueur and water). They’ve had these cocktails to-go even before lockdowns became the new normal.
Meanwhile, Sydney’s stay-at-home orders will remain until 16 July as the city tops 350 cases since the first Delta variant infection was detected in early June. Health officials say they are expecting the numbers to rise so there’s nothing better to do than to chill, relax and enjoy your drinks moderately at home.
To establish an alternative income stream, student accommodation providers in Redfern and other parts of Australia are temporarily seeking to change the use of their buildings into temporary hotel accommodations and rentals for non-students.
Scape Australia, the country’s largest student accommodation provider with upcoming purpose-built student accommodations (PBSA) in Redfern, and Iglu, which also runs a number of student dormitories in the borough, has sought permission from the City of Sydney to allow the changes amidst the uncertainties of the pandemic lockdowns.
Scape chief Anouk Darling said that their existing student homes are at 10 to 20 percent occupancy only whilst many of their new and completed state-of-the-art buildings have not yet opened due to the lack of international students.
Iglu’s Richard Smith said that they want temporary relief from the ongoing COVID situation and would like to turn their student buildings into accommodations for teachers and school support staff as well. The student accommodation provider has a new 18-storey building on Redfern’s Regent Street with 500 beds.
Photo Credit: Andrew Neel/Pexels
Prior to COVID-19, the purpose-built student accommodation industry has been booming with over 109,000 beds across Australia whilst 30,000 more are in development for the next few years. Scape has five new buildings around the country slated to open this year, which would lose millions in revenue if the borders remain closed.
As of January 2021, 60,394 student visa holders in NSW have not returned for in-person classes, per the figures from the Federal Department of Education, Skills and Employment However, Minister Alan Tudge said they will launch phased pilots to bring back the students in small numbers.
NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet said that the NSW Government has given the green light for 250 international students to fly into Sydney every two weeks beginning July 2021. The students will undergo mandatory quarantine at a purpose-built student accommodation, whether they are vaccinated or unvaccinated. The proposal has been submitted to the Federal Government for their review.
The Norfolk House and Hotel is reopening in Redfern, after a series of renovations worth $2 million, which include the addition of a recording room and a beer bar.
From the minds of revolutionary hospitality and accommodations group the people_ comes the new and improved Norfolk House and Hotel, complete with its own specially-made beer bar run by local operators in the hospitality industry. Here, customers can indulge themselves and support the local scene as their venues are not run by the people_, but rather by their specialist partners.
Photo credit: Supplied
the people_ was founded by Andrew Taylor, who also founded specialist hotel advisory and development company Cre8tive Property, and Paul Schulte, the creative director of The Keystone Group. The group aims to create suburban venues that cater to local communities by tailoring products and experiences to what appeals to them most.
Photo credit: Instagram/the_norfolk_
In the case of the revamped Norfolk Hotel, the redesigns brought on by the people_ aims to make the hotel stay true to its roots while simultaneously adapting the venue to keep up with the times and reflect the changing character of the suburb.
The hotel also features a special recording room for podcasters, TikTokers and Youtubers, providing content creators the opportunity to record material for their channels with fast internet and audio-visual facilities for them to use.
Photo credit: Supplied
The Norfolk House and Hotel is scheduled to reopen in early July 2021, and the hotel can be found at 305 Cleveland St, Redfern. For more information, visit their website here. Follow their social media pages on Facebook and Instagram for the latest updates and announcements concerning the hotel.
