old beauties get bulldozed away

[helen]

City streetscape losing charm as old beauties get bulldozed away

September 8, 2012 Meredith Burgmann

voted to demolish two century-old terraces in Botany Road, Alexandria, a 100-year-old shop front in Chinatown, which had been the headquarters of the Chinese Republic Newspaper & Trading Company, and most shockingly, an 1850s hotel in Devonshire Street, formerly known as the Madeira Inn.




www.smh.com.au/nsw/city-streetscape-losing-charm-as-old-beauties-get-bulldozed-away-20120907-25joj.html

[helen]

Published in today's Sydney Morning Herald, although you do have to scroll down to near the end!

www.smh.com.au/national/letters/yes-its-offensive-but-tweeters-do-have-a-choice-20120910-25obv.html

Protect our Chinese heritage

One hundred years ago, my great-grandfather's faction (the Empire Reform Association, or Baohuanghui) lost its 15-year struggle for the hearts and minds of Sydney's Chinese to Sun Yat Sen's Republicans.

Despite their differences, I'm sure Henry Fine Chong would have been disheartened by the news that the former home of his rivals' Chinese Republic Newspaper is to be obliterated for a ''development'' (''City streetscape losing charm as old beauties get bulldozed away'', September 8-9).

Sydney's Chinese heritage is continually under threat, as demonstrated recently by the attempted resumption of the Botany market gardens.

What will we lose next, the birthplace of his cousins' famous Wing On corporation on Ultimo Road, perhaps?

Chinatown is more than Dixon Street, and the new City of Sydney council should act to actually preserve it.

Brad Powe Gladesville