IS this bulldozed pile of rusted corrugated iron and timber scraps all that's left of Newcastle's famous shanty town, once called "Hollywood"?
Chances are it is, and although the last squatters here were forcibly evicted 63 years ago, other traces still survive, including a hidden, brick-lined well.
By then (back in 1960), this camp for homeless people, hidden in bush above the present Jesmond roundabout, had outlived six other shanty settlements that sprang up in the Great Depression from 1929.
While many camps existed only for about a decade or so, old Hollywood thrived for about 40 years, actually from the 1920s.
Then, in 1960, the new owners of the private site, once mining company land, brought in a bulldozer under police guard to flatten the makeshift tin shacks, often with only dirt floors.
All that remained for decades, concealed in tall grass, were sheets of rusted iron used by nearby Rankin Park children as cubbyhouses, plus buried broken crockery, toys and some small brick paths.
Rather surprisingly, this popular camp, also called "'Doggyville", had families of up to six people living there for years in huts made of corrugated iron sheets, hessian sacks or flattened kerosene tin cans erected over makeshift wood frames.
Three years before the forcible evictions and the camp's demolition, an inquiry in February 1957 into conditions in the camp found some people had lived there for a staggering 37 years.
The year before, in 1956, a survey revealed this camp for jobless people accommodated 82 adults and an amazing 55 children, in possibly about 50 dwellings.
This was well up from an estimated 63 people living in 27 dwellings in 1936, at the height of the 1930s economic depression.
A newspaper picture from 1941 also revealed one humble, two-room humpy resting on timber stumps having an odd curved "add-on". This consisted of halved water tanks used to store vegetables from their garden. Two pensioners in poor health occupied the dwelling.
It's hard to believe today that people could have once survived in Hollywood given the primitive conditions there. Living there was cheap, but the residents had no running water, electricity or sewer facilities.
But the people living there were often desperate and jobless. It wasn't until the outbreak of World War II in 1939 and full employment, that conditions generally improved.
Hollywood, and the city's other shanty camps, form an important, now almost unbelievable, part of Newcastle's social history.
But time marches on, and in recent weeks Novocastrians have witnessed more momentous change. The most obvious has been the start of construction at the Jesmond roundabout end of the $450 million fifth and final section of the Newcastle inner-city bypass.
The project is predicted to cut commuters' travel time by as much as 80 per cent by bypassing 11 sets of traffic lights.
This Rankin Park to Jesmond bypass aims to reduce traffic congestion by diverting 30,000 cars daily from Lookout Road, Croudace Street and Newcastle Road.
The 3.4 kilometre stretch of future road, spearing into bush off McCaffery Drive, has been described as a "missing link". It is expected to open to traffic in late 2025.
When finished, the four-lane dual highway will also provide a second access road at the rear of John Hunter Hospital, itself undergoing an $835million expansion. This involves a new seven-storey medical building and 900 extra car spaces.
And in the process, the new bypass has already obliterated what remained of Hollywood by cutting a broad swathe through bush ending at Jesmond roundabout and a future bridge.
Here, the most obvious early sign of change was the removal of the familiar tall bunya pine in the centre of the roundabout. It stood in the path of the new bridge.
The new Rankin Park to Jesmond link will require the removal of 51.8ha of trees and vegetation in total upon completion.
Sydney Heritage experts Casey and Lowe in a special report said the bypass had been declared a state significant project.
In their final heritage assessment, they reported the old Hollywood site on the route of the emerging road was a rare Depression era archaeological site.
Their investigation discovered evidence of "structural remains of up to 37 shanties (from the 1920s to the 1950s) with yard spaces", plus access tracks and other artefacts.
Ironically, Hollywood (also called Lambton Camp) once housing men, women and children is really wholly in Lambton, but sharing borders with Jesmond and Wallsend.
Today's "archaeological salvage" scheme, to permanently document what was left on site, is part of the ongoing Hollywood Heritage Project. So, it seemed appropriate then for me to write today's history page, updating matters I'd first written about in 2017.
The hidden "Hollywood" is just south of the Jesmond roundabout with one of its boundaries being the former 1887 Wallsend-Plattsburg Tramway, now a shared path for pedestrians and cyclists behind Jesmond Park.
Now, just out of interest, another prominent Great Depression era homeless camp in Newcastle was Nobbys Camp, today's Shortland Park at Horseshoe Beach.
By 1937, Nobbys shanty town surprisingly comprised 81 shacks housing 144 people. But with World War II looming, its dwellers were evicted to make way for Shortland military camp and parade ground. This operated here until 1972.
Another unemployment camp was called "Tram Car" at Waratah. The-then Waratah Council provided up to four steam tram cars that were gutted to provide accommodation for 17 single men.
Other shanty towns best remembered, but now erased, were "Texas" at Carrington, "Coral Trees" at Stockton, "Platt's Estate" apparently across the road from Waratah West public school, and a much smaller one called "Pigsty". This seems to have been within the old Waratah abattoir grounds.
Meanwhile, let's return to Hollywood. Members of Newcastle University's Hunter Living Histories group visited the scene in February this year and their shared experience was posted online.
Within 24 hours they were contacted by a Steven Ward, whose family once lived in Hollywood and who wished to clear up misconceptions concerning the "village" history.
"Doggyville" was not a derogatory name for the place, Ward wrote.
"(Instead) It was a term used by locals as a nickname for my great uncle, Harold 'Doggy' Young, who owned, trained and raced greyhounds, and who lived in 'Hollywood' next to my grandfather's' home. The first baby born there was in 1934," Ward said.
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