Read more on Jamie's record to save the Powerhouse
Dear Premier,
I am writing to strongly protest against the sale of the Powerhouse building in Ultimo to property developers. This building is an integral part of Sydney’s unique landscape and should be kept for the public to enjoy.
The Powerhouse Museum is an important part of the city’s cultural life, and to see the building converted into apartments and taken away from the community is a disaster for all Australians.
Nationally significant buildings should be kept in public hands to ensure their preservation and long-term public use, rather than sold off to the highest bidder.
Yours sincerely,
4,786 SIGNATURES
GOAL: 3,000 signatures
Showing 2013 reactions
I can’t believe such a marvelous museum and archive facility would be closed and destroyed simply for apartments.
Why do I keep feeling more and more alienated. It seems if you are not a developer, miner and the like, you do not rate with this government. When will “ordinary” citizens have a say in this so-called democracy. Is profit the reason d’être these days does not anything else matter.
I now live in the Inner West but grew up on the Northern Beaches and also lived near Wollongong.
As a Fairfax journalist at the time of its inception, I watched the Powerhouse grow from scratch, while also being a frequent visitor to its older and much smaller predecessor museum across and down Harris Street.
Sydney’s Powerhouse Museum is centrally located for people coming from the city’s north, south and east and an easy trip from the west via train and bus.
Most overseas and interstate visitors, unless they have family or business to conduct in the West, usually stay in the CBD/Bondi or Manly area, which offer easy access to most of Sydney’s universities, conference centres and Sydney’s main CBD banking and finance sector.
Realistically (and I am not-anti Western Sydney: my long-time late partner grew up in Springwood and lived for many years at Harris Park next to Parramatta) these visitors are not going to travel to Parramatta purely to visit the Museum (or other major Sydney attractions such as Taronga Zoo or the Australian Museum).
I also visit its Brisbane equivalent Powerhouse annually and can’t imagine it being sold off for its now very valuable location and its facilities relocated to Western Brisbane…nor an equivalent action taking place in Melbourne to, say, the riverside Arts Centre, Melbourne.
Or the Greater London Council deciding to relocate the Tate Modern to outer London to sell off its location!
The Western Suburbs deserves a brand new museum which they have a hand in designing from day one, not a second-hand museum relocated for a cash grab.
Relocating the Powerhouse in order to sell off its valuable site would confirm the NSW government represent the sort of intellectual and artistic (not to mention dodgy) philistines that Sydneysiders are parodied as being in works like David Williamson’s play “The Emerald City”.
And I love the cafe and the shop – happy mum, happy kids.