The long-abandoned ghost buildings in Sydney’s CBD
Her other previous holdings included Pyrmont’s Terminus Hotel, which was closed for 33 years before reopening in 2018, and the Griffiths Tea building, now home to the Chin Chin restaurant.
Across the street from the Sussex Street building, the old Bristol Arms Hotel (sometimes called ‘retro’) also stands empty, with graffiti scrawled across the rear facade, garbage piled up on the landings and windows missing.
Unison House on Liverpool Street in the CBD – the former home of the Goodgod Small Club – has become a zombie building.Credit: Edwina Pickles
On Liverpool Street in the CBD, near the corner of Kent Street, another building stands empty and derelict after plans to build a hotel were put on hold during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The five-story Unison House, whose basement once housed the Goodgod Small Club, is boarded up and graffitied. In 2015 the previous owner, Wisdom Fortune Pty Ltd submitted plans to convert the site into a hotel and add a roof extension. The plans were revised and again approved by the council in 2019, but work never started.
Property documents show Wisdom Fortune sold the building last year for $40.6 million to a company called MC Bob Investment Pty Ltd, of which Weng Cheong Wong is the sole director and shareholder.
Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore said she has asked her councilor to issue an additional reminder to building owners to ensure their compliance records are up to date and vacant premises are safe.
“Councils are not required to keep records of vacant buildings, nor are building owners required to notify councilors of their occupancy status,” the council said in a statement.
The old Newtown tram sheds next to the Newtown train station are graffitied and overgrown with vegetation.Credit: Nick Moir
Away from the city, the former Newtown tram depot has been closed since the 1950s and is now rotting and overgrown with vegetation. The sheds are in a prime location adjacent to Newtown Train Station and King Street – and over the years various proposals for repurposing the site have been made but never implemented.
The state government’s Transport Asset Holding Entity confirmed that the former tram sheds were among several sites being considered for future community use or affordable housing as part of their affordable housing pilot project.
“TAHE has recently started initial survey work to assess the structure and condition of the tram sheds and provide information on their conservation,” the agency said.
The abandoned mansion at 5 Morella Road in Mosman before it was sold for $6.6 million in 2016.Credit: domain
Long a favorite for city explorers (and squatters), an abandoned mansion on Morella Road in Mosman is about to be renovated. The once magnificent estate of the wealthy Parer family has been in a state of disrepair for more than 20 years.
New plans to partially demolish and rebuild the mansion were approved in September, subject to certain conditions still to be worked out.
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A photographer who publishes under the name Andros and explored abandoned buildings around Sydney said he was drawn to the history and mystery of places left alone to decay.
“Every building has a certain emotion. I don’t know what it is – it’s like an aura or something from the past,” Andros said.
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