White Bay is a bay

Bay

A bay is an area of water mostly surrounded by land. Bays generally have calmer waters than the surrounding sea, due to the surrounding land blocking some waves and often reducing winds. Bays also exist as an inlet in a lake or pond. A large bay may be called a gulf, a sea, a sound, or a bight...

 on Sydney Harbour with a surrounding locality near the suburbs of Balmain

Balmain, New South Wales

Balmain is a suburb in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Balmain is located slightly west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....

 and Rozelle

Rozelle, New South Wales

Rozelle is a suburb in the inner west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located 4 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Municipality of Leichhardt....

 in the Inner West

Inner West (Sydney)

The Inner West is a general term which is used to describe the metropolitan area directly to the west of the Sydney central business district, New South Wales, Australia...

 of Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, New South Wales

New South Wales

New South Wales is a state of :Australia, located in the east of the country. It is bordered by Queensland, Victoria and South Australia to the north, south and west respectively. To the east, the state is bordered by the Tasman Sea, which forms part of the Pacific Ocean. New South Wales...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

.

History

The area has operated since the nineteenth century for water-based transport

Transport

Transport or transportation is the movement of people, cattle, animals and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, rail, road, water, cable, pipeline, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations...

 and industrial uses. In conjunction with adjacent Glebe Island it has been a multipurpose port

Port

A port is a location on a coast or shore containing one or more harbors where ships can dock and transfer people or cargo to or from land....

, owned and controlled by the Government of New South Wales

Government of New South Wales

The form of the Government of New South Wales is prescribed in its Constitution, which dates from 1856, although it has been amended many times since then...

 since 1901. It caters for container handling, break bulk cargo (timber

Timber

Timber may refer to:* Timber, a term common in the United Kingdom and Australia for wood materials * Timber, Oregon, an unincorporated community in the U.S...

, paper

Paper

Paper is a thin material mainly used for writing upon, printing upon, drawing or for packaging. It is produced by pressing together moist fibers, typically cellulose pulp derived from wood, rags or grasses, and drying them into flexible sheets....

, motor vehicles and steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

) and dry bulk cargoes (cement

Cement

In the most general sense of the word, a cement is a binder, a substance that sets and hardens independently, and can bind other materials together. The word "cement" traces to the Romans, who used the term opus caementicium to describe masonry resembling modern concrete that was made from crushed...

, sugar

Sugar

Sugar is a class of edible crystalline carbohydrates, mainly sucrose, lactose, and fructose, characterized by a sweet flavor.Sucrose in its refined form primarily comes from sugar cane and sugar beet...

, gypsum

Gypsum

Gypsum is a very soft sulfate mineral composed of calcium sulfate dihydrate, with the chemical formula CaSO4·2H2O. It is found in alabaster, a decorative stone used in Ancient Egypt. It is the second softest mineral on the Mohs Hardness Scale...

, aggregates, etc).

The White Bay Hotel

White Bay Hotel

The White Bay Hotel was built in 1860 on the corner of the then Crescent and Weston Streets in Rozelle, an inner-west suburb of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia...

  was a historic hotel on Victoria Road. It was first built in 1861, rebuilt in 1916, and refurbished in 1925 and 1933. It finally closed in 1992, "landlocked" by roads and with no local workers. Until 2004 it served only as a platform for billboards advertising to traffic on the Western Distributor, and on 5 September 2008 was destroyed by a suspicious fire and immediately demolished.
The NSW state government bought the site in June 2010.
Rubble removed 29 October 2010 and area of block leveled.

Landmarks

The derelict White Bay Power Station dominates the landscape. On the eastern side stands the magnificent ANZAC Bridge

ANZAC Bridge

The ANZAC Bridge or Anzac Bridge , replacing the earlier Glebe Island Bridge, is a large cable-stayed bridge spanning Johnstons Bay between Pyrmont and Glebe Island in proximity to the central business district of Sydney, Australia...

, which was completed in 1996 and is the main arterial link between the inner west and Sydney city. Below the bridge lies its predecessor, the Glebe Island Bridge, which opened in 1903.

Notable residents

For 25 years from 1971 to just before her death in 1996, one of Sydney's true characters, Beatrice ("Beattie") Bush, sold papers to passing motorists at the junction of The Crescent (City West Link) and Victoria Road.
Every morning in all weather, wearing Balmain Tigers

Balmain Tigers

The Balmain Tigers are a rugby league football club based in the inner-western Sydney suburb of Balmain. They were a founding member of the New South Wales Rugby League and one of the most successful in the history of the premiership, with eleven titles...

 socks and running shoes, Beatrice was part of the drive to work for thousands of motorists.

The 1984 song The White Bay Paper Seller by Judy Small

Judy Small

Judy Small is an Australian entertainer, folk singer, songwriter, and guitarist. Known for her feminist, often patriotic, and political songs, usually following a traditional theme, she has produced twelve albums, hundreds of songs and has been described as being among the most popular political...

 was written about Beatrice. The 1986 painting Beatrice the Paper-Seller of the White Bay Intersection by Susan Dorothea White

Susan Dorothea White

Susan Dorothea White , also called Sue White and Susan White, is an Australian painter, sculptor, and printmaker. She is a narrative artist and her work concerns the natural world and human situation, increasingly incorporating satire and irony to convey her concern for human rights and equality...

 shows Beatrice Bush running between the cars and trucks, selling newspapers in the rain. The 2004 documentary, The Paper Queen by Julie Nebauer documented her life. In 2005 a new cycle bridge crossing Victoria Road at the intersection of The Crescent was named the Beatrice Bush Bridge in her honour. Her newspaper trolley, hat, gloves and other clothing items are held in the Powerhouse Museum

Powerhouse Museum

The Powerhouse Museum is the major branch of the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences in Sydney, the other being the historic Sydney Observatory...

 collection in Sydney.

External links

• reference and article (cc-by-sa) at the Dictionary of Sydney
  Dictionary of Sydney
  The Dictionary of Sydney is a digital humanities project to produce an online, expert-written encyclopedia of all aspects of the history of Sydney. The project is a partnership between the City of Sydney, the University of Sydney, the State Library of New South Wales, the State Records Authority of...
  
  
• Sydney Ports - Master Plans
• Local Images at InnerWest ImageBank
• Local History Collection, Leichhardt Council
• Disney held unsolicited discussions with the NSW Department of State and Regional Development about the redevelopment of White Bay
• Beer may flow once again at White Bay Hotel
• Last Drinks at Rozelle's Historic White Bay Hotel
• Susan Dorothea White's 1986 painting 'Beatrice the Paper-Seller of the White Bay Intersection'