Leichhardt and area

Inner West series- Pyrmont, Inner West, Sydney University, Glebe, Leichhardt
Public Buildings
01 Leichhardt Town Hall	02 Leichhardt Post Office
14 Annandale Post Office	11 Leichhardt Fire Station	12 Leichhardt Public School
Churches, worship
20 All Souls Anglican Church	21 Leichhardt Uniting Church	04 Hunter Baillee Presbyterian Church
08 Former Primitive Methodist church
Mansions
03 Witches’ Houses, Annandale	07 The Abbey, Annandale
Houses
22 Catherine Street houses	23 Jarrett Street houses
Other- shops, utilities, memorials
05 Norton Street Cinema	25 Goodman’s Buildings, Parramatta Road
Pubs
13 Leichhardt Hotel	19 Norton Hotel	24 North Annandale Hotel

 

Annandale Post Office (on the National Estate)

Johnston Street & North Annandale Hotel

Goodman’s Buildings, Parramatta Road & Foro Italicao

Norton Cinema & Parramatta Road

Pioneers Memorial Park entrance

Leichhardt is a suburb in the Municipality of Leichhardt in the inner-west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. The suburb is situated between Haberfield to the west, Annandale to the east, Lilyfield to the north and Petersham to the south. It is named after the Prussian explorer Ludwig Leichhardt, who in the 1840s was feted for his 4,800-km expedition in search of an overland route from southern Queensland to Port Essington (near Darwin), and who later famously vanished without trace on his attempt to cross the continent from the Darling Downs to the Swan River Colony on the Western Australia coast. Leichhardt is best known as Sydney's "Little Italy". Although it has become less distinctively Italian with the increasing gentrification of the suburb and movement of families to suburbs with larger blocks of land such as nearby Haberfield, Five Dock, Concord and further afield as Gladesville, Ryde, Fairfield and Baulkham Hills, its Italian character is still palpable, particularly in the popular restaurants and cafés of its main street, Norton Street. Along with its mix of residential buildings, restaurants and individual retail outlets, the commercial thoroughfare of Norton street also contains several bookstores, hotels, a cinema and two of the suburb's three shopping centres — Norton Plaza and the Italian Forum. The Italian Forum (located just off Norton street) is notable for its design which seeks to emulate the feel of a Mediterranean town plaza, with a pedestrian-only central courtyard with outdoors and indoors restaurant dining, surrounded by small shops and boutiques on the level above, and all overlooked by residential apartments. The third shopping centre, Leichhardt Market Place (formerly Market Town), is located closer to Haberfield on the main cross street of Marion Street. Suburbs and localities within the Municipality of Leichhardt | Inner West | Sydney  Annandale | Balmain | Balmain East | Birchgrove | Cockatoo Island | Glebe Point | Leichhardt | Lilyfield | Rozelle Annandale aqueduct, 1896

Keeping the theme alive in Leichhardt By Peter Munro Copyright SMH September 6 2002 We think of Leichhardt as the centre of the Italian community in Sydney - but it's a myth, according to Italian Historical Society president Peter Pesoriero. "Norton Street is the culinary equivalent of the three-minute grab. It is not an accurate story but it is good enough for someone who wants it quick and easy," he said. "It is like Mulberry Street on the New York Lower East Side. It is called Little Italy but there are no Italians there except for the ones running the restaurants to make tourists feel they are getting a taste of little Italy.". The Italian Forum, a large open area of restaurants on Norton Street, was "about as phoney as it gets", he said. According to Pesoriero, Leichhardt was just one arbitrary spot amongst all of the inner west and inner city, which in post-WWII were cheap and popular with Italians. At that time, Campbell and Hay Streets in the southern end of the city were the places to buy Italian food. "When I was a kid in the 30s and 40s Paddington was a slum and a terrible place that was so cheap and undesired by the Australian population that as soon as Italians were able to get a loan from the bank they would buy and move in. "They dicked up these houses, spent their weekends painting them. Then the young trendy people in the swinging 60s started buying them and the rest is history. "You would not find any of the original Italians in Paddington today because they priced themselves out of it," he said. And so it goes. Italian migrants dispersed and so did the idea of an Italian community in Sydney, he said. "The Italian community is a myth. You get two Italians together and you end up with three political parties. In other words they don't agree on anything, they are not united." But if there is one centre in Sydney where Italians and lovers of Italian flock, it is still the "theme park" that is Leichhardt, he said. "People who are going for an outing who have an Italian background or were born in Italy will go there because it makes them feel they are at home. So the myth becomes a reality. But it is not as though the people were there in the first place more than anywhere else."

links Maps and aerial photos Street maps from Street Directory or Whereis or MSN Maps. Satellite photos from Google Maps and Terraserver. Leichhardt Municipality Council website 2001 Census Information