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When I tell people where I live, it’s not unknown for residents in other parts of Sydney to say, “Oh, Double Bay”, in a tone of voice that suggests I’m surrounded by diamond-encrusted dowagers. And sure, this small suburb, five kilometres east of the CBD, is tucked between Darling Point and Point Piper, close to some of the richest people in Sydney and, indeed, Australia. But anyone who thinks Double Bay is just a smug little enclave supported solely by The Australian Financial Review Rich List is dead wrong.
DB, as some locals call it, actually has a village vibe. Or double village vibe, since it’s bisected by the bellowing traffic of New South Head Road. On one side (known to some of us as the “dark side”) you have the big-name businesses: a decent Woolies, Dan Murphy’s, bakery, a really good public library, massive pet supplies shop and banks. There are also several establishments dedicated to the pursuit of beauty … via surgery.
The other side is where the harbour is. One of the nicest things you can do is take your flat white from the Bahia Cafe off Bay Street down to the park and the ferry, and watch the DB version of the passeggiata along the path that fringes the small beach. You’ll see mums with their small kids, joggers and people with dogs. Lots of dogs, ranging from hounds of the Baskervilles to various oodles and down to some that might make interesting hors d’oeuvres.
On some days the ferry disgorges middle-aged men in ironed jeans and women wearing frilly dresses, all from the Circular Quay cruise ships – a 15-minute ride away – and bound for the fancy dress and homewares shops in Transvaal Avenue. Steyne Park nearby is the sports ground for the local primary school, as well as the place where the Ascham schoolgirls play touch football. You often see parents and coaches shouting encouragement to very small children kicking very large soccer balls. If you’re hell-bent on exercise yourself, it’s easy to walk into the CBD in about 50 minutes.
When I was growing up in Sydney’s northern suburbs, Double Bay was in the mysterious east, a part of the city my family and friends never visited, a posh place where rich people lived. I had no idea I would ever live in Double Bay myself, let alone for almost 30 years. (I moved here for love, not money.)
When I arrived in 1997 the suburb felt much more stylishly European than it does now. It was a place of small shops stretching along New South Head Road and Knox Street like glittering beads on a necklace. They included Nellie Vida’s fashion boutique, the Mignon cake shop and Georges Restaurant, with its elegant and supercilious waiters; there were also the Swiss Deli, the Village Cinema, Lesley McKay’s excellent bookshop and 21 Espresso, famous for its matzo ball soup and borscht. DB has been the place of first settlement and the social centre for Sydney’s Jewish community since the 1930s: when I moved in, there were quite a few Jewish families living in our building.
All that’s changed now. In the past 20 years the population of Double Bay has undergone a huge shift. It’s now a place of young men in expensive suits and gleaming loafers without socks, of long-haired women in expensive activewear queuing outside Baker Bleu in Guilfoyle Street, of Mercs and Porsches and occasionally Lamborghinis. There are also hordes of young children, many of whose parents endure driving to private schools in Rose Bay or Bellevue Hill rather than to the local primary school – a place they would know only when required to vote.
But there is still the jewel in the crown of DB: the Murray Rose Pool, formerly known as Redleaf Pool, a great social and community asset, as was the great Olympic swimmer himself. A tide-fed harbourside enclosure on the Rose Bay side, the Murray Rose was never built for competitive swimming; unlike Bondi, you won’t find too many stalwarts braving the freezing water in winter.
The Murray Rose is a summer place and on hot days it’s packed: little kids dive-bombing off the edges into the salt water, teenagers displaying bikinis or six-packs, families with eskies, older women swathed in sun-defying kaftans, men and women of all ages reading on the nearby grass. (The pool must be one of the few places in Sydney where people prefer to read on paper rather than on screen.)
New DB isn’t all brushed steel fittings and botox and Armani; other bits of old DB remain. There’s the Golden Sheaf pub, for instance, and the bloke in the bootmakers who has been repairing shoes since pointy-toed stilettos appeared for the first time in the 1970s. Mario the barber is still there. There is still a “table of knowledge” outside 21 in Knox Street, its members often the sons of the original Mittel-European residents. And the grandchildren of the man who set up Elbon Coffee in the arcade off New South Head Road now weigh out coffee beans from Brazil, Ecuador and Guatemala. Double Bay may change as more high-rise appears, but we’re not going anywhere.
Jacqueline Kent is a writer of biography. Her most recent book is Inconvenient Women.
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