By Elliot Lindsay (an abridged version first published in Neighbourhood Media, 2010 Magazine, Issue#13) He was, at first, a man no one would have remembered. In the early 1880s, along Riley Street in Darlinghurst, Frederick Deeming lived a quiet domestic life. He was a plumber by trade, moving between addresses at 162 and 165 Riley…
In sunlit elegance, the last waltz of a butterfly ends with a bullet and a mystery that lingers in Darlinghurst’s long shadow. By Elliot Lindsay A Door Opens on Tragedy The door to Flat 11, Harrow Mansions, creaked open under the weight of Inspector Tom Lynch’s hand, and the air inside hit him like a…
In 1890, a terrible murder-suicide committed in a bohemian artist’s Darlinghurst home shocked the nation. Detectives revealed a same-sex love scandal. But this was a secret that could never be revealed to the public.
William MacDonald “The Mutilator,” Sydney’s Most Disturbed Serial Killer There was an eerie silence over the streets of Darlinghurst on the night of March 31, 1962. It was a Saturday night, almost 10 pm, and the intoxicated men stumbling home from the pub were nowhere to be seen. Even the dark shadowy figures sipping from…
By ELLIOT LINDSAY Booze, Vice & Racial Segregation: When the Americans came to Sydney during WW2 During the Second World War, Sydney became the destination for tens of thousands of US servicemen on rest leave. These ‘yanks’, as Sydneysiders typically called them, came to Sydney with pockets of cash and looking for a good time….