© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY
Read more about the article Buried treasure: Newcastle’s “Maritime Museum”
Newcastle in the late days of sail.

Buried treasure: Newcastle’s “Maritime Museum”

As a major global port with an extraordinary maritime history, one might suppose that Newcastle would have a maritime museum as a matter of course. Some years ago you would have been right, but not any more. Newcastle Maritime Museum once occupied one of the old Lee Wharf sheds on Newcastle's harbour-front, restored from dereliction with $2.4 million raised by the museum's dedicated volunteer committee. But in 2018 the museum was forced to leave this building - which had apparently been earmarked from the start of the city's Honeysuckle urban renewal project for community use -…

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Read more about the article Newcastle Showground’s past and future
Part of the Showground during the 1985 Show

Newcastle Showground’s past and future

The mistake was made - in all innocence - back in the 1970s. That at least is how Peter Evans, the president of Newcastle's Show Committee, sees it. According to Mr Evans, it was in the 1970s that the Newcastle Agricultural, Horticultural and Industrial Association was incorporated. "That's when the committee should have ensured that title in the Showground was transferred to the new incorporated body," he said. "Instead, it was left as it had been since 1905, vested in the trustees." That, in Mr Evans' view, left the door open for a future State Government…

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Read more about the article Stolen memories in history’s melting pot
Copper plaques on Newcastle's Coal Monument, before they were stolen

Stolen memories in history’s melting pot

What hurts about the theft of plaques from historical monuments is the directness of the assault on "the commons" - the jointly owned community resource they represent - and also the relatively trivial benefit the thieves will be receiving as a personal offset for the community's loss. With copper currently selling on the scrap market for between $10 and $12 a kilogram, it doesn't seem like much of an earner. But I suppose if you are desperate enough, if you can gather a lot of material together and if offloading the stolen stuff is easy then…

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