28 April 1934 - "WHAT CRANE DID TO PIER", Coogee, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia

IMAGE INFO
- The Newspaper photographer's viewpoint is looking south from about half-way along the semi demolished pier.
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COOGEE PIER HISTORIC SUMMARY
- Coogee Ocean Pier Co. Ltd. had been granted a 28 year lease to construct the Pier. Initial plans showed it extending a colossal 935' (285 meters) into Coogee Bay. The pier was to have a capacity to hold 21,000 people, with the massive pier head to contain a full size 1,400 seat theater, 600 dancer ballroom, first class restaurant, plus numerous shops & arcades. However, owing to a rapid funding crisis, the project eventually was only completed out to 590' (180 meters) in length - a long way short of the original plan. Even worse, all the pier head attractions mentioned above were also scrapped.
- To add to the developers financing headaches, unlike the calmer waters at Brighton, the incessant pounding, powerful surf that regularly smashed into the pier with every south-easterly "blow" were unrelenting. By as far back as January 1930, the developers had already sunk £78,300 into the project - a staggering $7,000,000 in todays money. Unsurprisingly, they never made any profit during the short life of the project. The Coogee Oceanic Pier Co. went into liquidation in May 1932, with the semi-complete loss-making Pier passing into the hands of Randwick Council by default.
- The Pier was immediately closed to the public following the collapse of the Company, while Council officers & engineers inspected the Pier for costings on urgently needed repairs to continue with the amusement business.
- However, Randwick Council soon found it would be totally un-economical for them to resurrect the Pier as a going concern (with repairs alone estimated at £4,000 in May 1933 (over $480,00 today). Unsurprisingly then, with mounting financial losses over the period 1932-1933 the by-now-derelict pier remains were sold off for Demolition by Council for a relatively paltry £2,800 (around $230,000 today).
- The "Coogee Oceanic Pier" was finally consigned to history & demolished during the period December 1933-May 1934, but not before a massive storm & huge waves on 2 Feb 1934 (as well as a collapsed crane on 27 Apr 1934) caused significant damage & mayhem for the demolition crew during the process. It seems the Pier was problematic for many people, right up to the end!!
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SOURCE INFO
- 1 x digitized newspaper image from page 1 of The Labor Daily newspaper, dated 28 April 1934.
- The original newspaper issue was fully digitized by the National Library of Australia (Trove Digitized Newspapers Collection) & is freely available from here - nla.gov.au/nla.news-article237463310
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CREDITS
- The Labor Daily newspaper for the original published newspaper image.
- National Library of Australia for their valuable work in digitizing, archiving & making publicly available online this rare historical content.
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COPYRIGHT STATUS
- Per NLA dvice:
Out of copyright: created before 1955.
Copyright status was determined using the following information:
Material type: Printed Photograph
Published status: Published before 1954
Government copyright ownership: No Government Copyright Ownership.
- Regarding my own work in creating this unique, cropped, restored & duo-toned version from the copy of the digitized original, I have applied "Attribution-Non-Commercial-Share Alike".
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PROCESS INFO
- I made 4 x cropped screen captures of the digitized original at full resolution.
- Using Microsoft Image Composite Editor (ICE) I combined the 4 parts into one image.
- Using Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 8.0, I adjusted some areas of uneven exposure, restored contrast & sharpness, removed some unwanted artifacts & used a dark sepia duo-tone curve for better tonal range.

Some rights reserved

Taken in: Australia / New South Wales / Sydney / Coogee (show map)

Taken on: April 28, 1934

Tags:

Sydney

New South Wales

PIER

COOGEE

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National Library of Australia

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NSW « less

Sets appears in: • COOGEE, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia • Alex & Dell CRISDALE 1885-2004 more » • CRISDALE Families Album (1885-1952) • Norm & Gwen CRISDALE Families Album • LANE Families Album « less

Groups appears in: • Photos in and of newspapers • Trove: Australia in Pictures more » • Historic Australia 1901-1945 • Coogee Beach • Photo Restoration • Newspaper Scans • flickr Map It • Historic Sydney • Vintage Newspapers • Sydney in B&W and Monochromatic tones • Vintage Australian Photos • Unique Vintage Black & White Photos • Dated Vintage Photographs (pre 1945) « less

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