REDFERN: Upgrades to the Douglas Street Playground officially opened on March 8. Alongside the new play equipment, shading and seating areas, the park also boasts new signage recognising its history as the product of collective community action.
The park was the result of the surge of resident action taking place in the 1970s. It was then owned by Rachel Forster Hospital and used largely as a rubbish tip. Redfern in the 1970s was home to many more children, in families with lower incomes. There were far fewer places for kids to hang out and play – a problem that partly inspired various campaigns that have since transformed the inner city.
In 1975 a group of residents from Douglas Street chose direct action and mutual aid. After a series of community meetings, they set to work – pulling down the fences, clearing away the rubbish and building a new adventure playground.
It remained a place for people to hang out and play through until the 1990s, when the Hospital, which still owned the land, made plans to sell it off. A second campaign emerged, led by local residents and Indigenous activists, including Shireen Malamoo. Eventually they persuaded council – then South Sydney Council – to buy it and permanently preserve it for community use.
This activist history seems to have been lost in the process of amalgamating South Sydney into the City of Sydney. But it was not entirely forgotten. My parents had been part of the community movement. They lived opposite the park and helped organise the takeover. They still had a silent video of the day.
When the park was due to be upgraded, my partner, Greens Councillor Sylvie Ellsmore, committed to resurrect its history. Redfern resident and community activist Geoff Turnbull went through the invaluable archives of Inner Sydney Voice, working with Council staff to recall and record its novel founding.
By coincidence, the reopening came the day before what would have been my dad, John Butcher’s 82nd birthday, and about six weeks after he passed. Now, as you enter the park a sign tells its history, complete with photos (my folks’ old house in the background) and the words from its first sign as a people’s park.
