Newtown
(postcode 2042) is a suburb in the Inner
West of Sydney, in the state of New South
Wales, Australia. Approximately 4km south-west
of the central business district, Newtown
straddles the border between the Local
Government Areas of the City of Sydney
and Marrickville Council. King Street
runs along the spine of a long ridge that
rises up from the coastal plains around
Botany Bay. The street reputedly follows
an ancient Aboriginal track that branched
out from the main western track (which
is now covered by Broadway and Parramatta
Road) and which continued all the way
to the shores of Botany Bay. According
to the colonial diarist Watkin Tench,
when Europeans arrived in Sydney it was
possible to walk easily all the way from
Sydney Cove to Botany Bay in a few hours,
through a grassy and lightly-wooded area
that Tench described as being like English
parkland.
South
end of King Street, Newtown. Visible in
the distance are the iconic brickworks
chimneys of Sydney Park.Although it was
originally a relatively prosperous suburb
(the legacy of which is the numerous lavish
Victorian mansions still standing in the
area), Newtown and its surrounds gradually
became a working-class enclave. For much
of the 20th century, Newtown was a low-income
blue-collar suburb, often denigrated as
a slum, which after World War II became
home to a large migrant population. The
physical character of the area has changed
significantly since the 1950s. Prior to
World War II, Newtown was heavily industrialised,
and the area was dotted with factories
of all kinds and sizes. Notable among
these was a large fruit preserving factory
owned by the IXL company, located near
Sydney University. The area was also home
to many smaller factories, workshops and
warehouses.
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