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I have long felt a sense of unease about the renovation of North Sydney Olympic Pool. It was less about the astronomical budget ($122 million) and five-year closure – although this has certainly concerned many of our readers – than about what the wrecking ball might do to this art deco treasure, which I have always considered one of Sydney’s most beautiful public facilities.
My attachment is unashamedly emotional: North Sydney was my childhood pool. I remember racing down the iconic staircase to get to squad training, eating red icy poles on the pool deck and cheering from the grandstand at school swimming carnivals. We’d leap from the diving boards, nag Mum for a coin for hot showers, and swim beneath the “bubble” (a strange temporary tent) in winter. I loved it for its beauty, its familiarity and its sense of history. I didn’t want it to change.
As North Sydney Mayor Zoe Baker said at the opening celebration, “Everyone owns their local pool. We each carry stories and memories.”
But Sydney, as Premier Chris Minns often says, is not a museum. It must change. We need more housing, and our social infrastructure, such as our pools, must evolve to meet the needs of new and younger residents.
This doesn’t mean we must unquestioningly throw all the city’s gems on the pyre of progress. Sydney can change while still preserving its treasures. To do this we should be able to have constructive, nuanced and frank public discussions – and we do, in the pages of the Herald – about what’s special enough to keep, what we should adapt and what we must sacrifice. We can do this without either side of the debate resorting to reductive monikers such as “YIMBY” or “NIMBY”.
We’re having that debate about Victoria Barracks in Paddington and HMAS Penguin in Mosman. The defence department is selling them off, sparking tension between those who believe these sites could host more housing while preserving their heritage, and others who believe these sites are too special to touch. Minns on Friday announced a major rezoning of North Parramatta that will provide thousands of homes. He says the plan preserves the historic Female Factory; others fear the housing comes too close to one of Australia’s most significant women’s convict sites.
There will never be consensus but constructive, open-minded debate that remains mindful of the need for Sydney to be a liveable, affordable and welcoming city is our best path to a practical compromise.
Which brings me back to North Sydney Pool. I visited on Friday morning and my hopes were low. I feared it would be a $122 million exercise in desecration. Certainly, attempts in other parts of Sydney to combine history preservation and functionality – such as the awkward renovation of the city’s first freshwater pool at Enfield, for example (which is now being renovated again) – ended up achieving neither.
At first glimpse my prejudices were affirmed. The beautiful red brick wall that used to line the street was overshadowed by a boxy, light grey building. But upon closer inspection, the wall was still there and the box housed a pristine new indoor program pool, complete with sauna and steam room. (I would have faked illness less frequently if my winter swimming squad had been held there rather than in the bubble.) The old grandstand with concrete cancer might have been replaced by a new one but its view of the harbour is just as magnificent.
The art deco arches have been preserved, and while the children’s pool has been enlarged, the tiles still use the old pattern. The sun deck has been reconstructed using the original red bricks. I would have liked the change rooms to be preserved – I loved the old fittings, even if it meant the bathrooms were freezing – but most pool users will prefer the new comforts, which include heated floors and a machine I’ve never seen before, to spin water out of wet cozzies.
The pool might no longer be the one at which I created my childhood memories but it will be a place for our children to create their own.
It has been an expensive exercise, and a chaotic one. The saga has been extensively documented by our Sydney editor Megan Gorrey, who wrote on Friday about how the project became a lightning rod for debate about whether local governments should embark on such large infrastructure projects as councils across Sydney struggle to upgrade pools.
The council’s finances are in disarray because of it, and rates will be hiked to help pay for it. Still, Zoe Baker believes visitors will be won over by the “absolutely beguiling” venue.
It will be up to North Sydney ratepayers to decide if the cost, delays and debt have been worth it. The pool is free to visit this weekend but for those who can’t make it down to Milsons Point – or think it’s too cold! – our video team has produced a video. Cindy Yin, who also had her school swimming carnivals at North Sydney, has written a review.
Her view is that despite the huge budget and construction delays, the thing that made North Sydney a great pool – its extraordinary location – has not changed. She writes: “As other councils embark on their own pool renovations across Sydney, I hope they remember what actually matters to most people: welcoming, accessible places to swim, built on time and on budget.”
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