On Pyrmont Bridge

 

On Pyrmont Bridge

I stop walking –

To stare at an old wooden cabin –

Cream and green, on stilts,

An antiquated piece of history stares:

It has been updated with force

As CCTV Cameras hang, upon fresh paint;

Behind, Sofitel, Hyatt and Imax glimmers

Along with shiny CBD towers

 

The cabin seems to stand

A test of time,

It has swung open this bridge

For a hundred years,

Noting the ships that came in,

Bringing wealth and news from home

Building a colony,

Changing the waterfront

One edifice at a time

 

I stare at this anachronism,

And wonder who is at fault?

The control cabin

For having survived the passage of time?

Or the high-rises –

Late entrants, new comers

In ancient Dharug lands

That have been changing

For hundreds of years

 

The flags on the bridge flutter

And remind, perhaps

there is one more source of fault –

These eyes of the passer-by

That try to reconcile

Layers of time at a single moment,

That try to find meaning

At what should be glanced at, and forgotten;

The tourists stare at me, wondering what I see …

 

15^th July 2026

 

Perched above the centre of the Pyrmont Bridge, the humble control cabin is one of Sydney's quiet industrial relics. Since the bridge opened in 1902, generations of bridge operators worked from this small timber room, swinging the central span open to allow steamships and cargo vessels into Darling Harbour. From its windows, they witnessed Sydney's transformation—from a bustling working harbour of wool stores, wharves and shipyards to the glass skyline of a global financial city. Though the bridge no longer opens routinely, the cabin endures as a silent custodian of the harbour's memory, reminding passers-by that beneath the modern city lies another Sydney, patiently waiting to be noticed.