South Newcastle Beach

Former aerosol art paradise.

Newcastle City is separated from the Pacific Ocean by a sandy strip called Newcastle Beach, shown below. Rocks divide the beach into “Newcastle Beach” and “South Newcastle Beach” – not to be confused with “South Newcastle,” a precinct that does not exist. But if it did, residents would promptly rename it "The Hill."

Above: Viewed south west. Beyond the central outcrop of rocks is the southern half of Newcastle Beach, the focus of this article. It's 8am Thursday, 5th February 2004 and everyone's at work or, like your photographer, on their way.

A seaside graffiti venue existed late last century and into the first decade of this one. On walls facing the southern beach near Royal Newcastle Hospital (at center and now demolished) the kids sprayed, writ, pieced, muralled, tagged, scribbled, and bombed to their hearts' content.

Newcastle city and its council has a long and friendly relationship with public art, including even "non-vandalistic" graffiti. In the 1990s an area where the former South Newcastle Beach pavilion once stood was provided for "quasi-legal" graffiti. When Throsby came upon it in 2004 with his shiny new digital camera, the skateboard park, structures, and walls near the beach resembled a war zone of paint bombing, tags, and scribbles on every spare inch of wall and ground, even the fence rails. And, sadly, over serious pieces and murals.

In May of 2005 council rejected a zero-tolerance approach to "graffiti" and an aerosol art agreement was adopted. Created in 2006, its register of artists allowed for three areas:

Barney Langford, the coordinator of the Palais Youth Venue, which runs aerosol art courses, says the wall will have three components, a free-form area, as well as sections for senior artists. "A free-form wall will be operated pretty much by the young people themselves, the second part is a senior artist wall and the third part is a mural wall."

In April 2010 Newcastle City Council – a formerly street-art-tolerant council – both shut down the registered writers’ venue and banned legal aerosol art walls anywhere in the local government area. Some considered wall art “a blight on our city” while others believed graffiti would be minimised by allowing legal spaces for artists.

Sentiment at the time was reflected in this submission to a NSW government inquiry on graffiti:

The first recommendation is for the eradication of mural painting projects which are currently employed by New South Wales state and local governments... Mural Paintings can invoke more graffiti; they can offer the opportunity for taggers to paint over.

The panorama below stretches along the sides of Shortland Esplanade, with amenities buildings and skate park duly decorated. This was Newcastle’s own “5 Pointz" – and like that famous New York sister zone, it’s gone. The city had another ‘5 Pointz’ venue, the Palais Royale, a repurposed historic dance hall. Now demolished.

Above: The wall, change rooms, and skateboard area in October 2004. Click the photo to open an interactive panorama. Click, drag, or gesture to navigate the enlarged image.

Eventually, word reached councillors of cities famous for displays of "sanctioned graffiti" that had become tourist attractions. And the world had never stopped loving public murals, a form of art on par with sculpted works in parks and city squares.

Newcastle City Council (CN) and the citizens of this happy city have resumed their former love of public art. Since the beach venue closure, murals and street art in Newcastle have flourished, due to both commissioned commercial and public works and initiatives like the Public Art Program, Pride of Place, and Revitalise Newcastle, This Is Not Art (TINA), and Hit the Bricks festivals.

But for now, this particular photo essay depicts the early days of that battle for legitimacy, reflected in the surfaces around this popular beach.

Below: Newcastle Beach, undated, but circa 1980s. This view shows the northern pavilion. At left is the relatively grand southern structure, long gone. The deserted beach says parked cars belong to workers, typically hospital employees. Shortland Esplanade winds around the beach. Church Street curves downhill to meet it at the centre of picture.

Shortland Esplanade at that time allowed vehicular access past the beach and southern pavilion and into the lower section of King Edward Park, which is now foot traffic only. It was one of the city's finest scenic drives, and each year hosted the famous King Edward Park Hill Climb, that ran from 1951 until 2015.

Overview

The galleries that follow show copious artwork and graffiti from the numbered areas on the image below. They were captured between 2004 and 2008. Most pictures are 'clickable.' If you do tap or click an image, it opens a photo viewer that can be perused in sequence by whichever key/gesture works for your device. Tap/click the 'X' at top right (or 'escape' button/gesture) to return to the article.

Above: South Newcastle Beach zoomed in. Areas of artwork and graffiti marked 1 to 6 are treated below in detail.

This is a very large collection of photographs. Presenting them coherently is a challenge. For readers unfamiliar, the aerial photos are from late last century when "The Royal" was a working hospital, and the southern beach and its pavilion were favoured by beachgoers.

This overview begins with broad-scene views of each area.

Area 1. Skate park and The Wall in 2005. Above, looking south west. Below, viewed north east.
As this section of the esplanade gave way to joggers, one can readily sense the antipathy that would end the kids' ownership of this space.

Below: Area 2. Amenities block in 2004.
Beyond them is the skateboard area. Mid section of The Wall is at right. Viewed south west.

Below: Areas 3 & 5 circa 2004.
South tunnel emerges onto the beach at left. Further left the southern half of The Wall starts. At right The Wall extends behind the shelter. Former Royal Newcastle Hospital in background.

Below: Area 4 in 2005.
Esplanade wall seating - situated at the northern tip of esplanade wall, visible at left. Ocean baths and rock pool in distance, north of the beach.

Below: Area 6 in 2007.
Church Street wall, where much fine artwork appeared.

Galleries

Topic menus (click or tap) jump to each section.
** NOTE! To return to the very top of this article (or on any page of this website) tap/click the "^" in a blue box at bottom right of page.

1. Wall and Skateboard Area (immediately below)
2. Change Rooms
3. Covered Walkway
4. North Wall Seating
5. South Tunnel
6. Church St Wall.

1. Wall and Skateboard Area

The wall, a vertical embankment along Shortland Esplanade, stretches perhaps 100 metres or two from the Church Street intersection to where it leaves the beach. This was a huge canvas and, as the image galleries show, no space was left unpainted.

Notes:
* The wall has two sections, north and south of the tunnel.
* Being early days, the photographer had not realised the need for 'contextual' wide shots. So many of the close-ups are therefore unplaceable. Guesswork applies.
* The reader is asked to do their best to combine these images into a whole in their imagination, and your archivist will do their best to present them in some order.

The Wall. 6th October 2004

Below: The southern end of the main wall.

Above: Just south of the tunnel.
Below: From the wide shot, this section was just past the change room. From the banner "South Newcastle Beach" partly obscured, we find that I arrived too late to capture the inaugural works. If anyone has snaps of it, we would love to publish them here, with your attribution.

Above: Working southward along the wall.
Below: A clickable collection of random works, some of which might belong to the change rooms (2), or to the northern end of the wall behind the covered walkway (3).

The Wall. 20th February 2005

The following three images show the extent of the wall.

Below: The northern tip. Just out of sight at far right is the sheltered wall seating of section 4.

Above: Viewed south east, the northern wall section behind the covered walkway.
Below: Alongside the skateboard area runs the southern end of The Wall. Closeup views follow the wide shot below.

Below: The rent-a-fence is part of ongoing cliff stabilisation work.

The Wall. 7th January 2007

Not a lot to show. Guess I was busy up the hill a bit on the day. But these two caught my eye.

The Wall. 17th December 2008

Below, the next few images taken along the wall moving northwards to the seating.

Meanwhile, south of the tunnel...

Above and below: Northward, then south, from the mid-point of the southern end of the esplanade wall. Skateboard area behind photographer.

A clickable gallery of dozens of individual works along the wall on this day.

The Wall. 2008: Skateboard area.

On this day a foreboding notice had appeared in the skateboard area. So I spent a little time capturing some of the board park details.

2. Change Rooms

Well, as you can see, despite original hopes and intentions the area became a free-for-all bomb fest. The dollar-value of paint probably exceeds the GDP of many neighbouring Pacific nations.

Below: These first three images were taken on the 6th of October, 2004.

Above: On the south-facing central wall exterior, in shadow, was this... with apologies to Lora.

Two images above on 7th January, 2007, and three below, on 17th December, 2008.

We're being specific with dates on the preceding images because there's a battle going on here between the organisers and the night visitors.

Below: a gallery of notices painted on the change rooms. The first wide-angle picture is from 2007. Others from 2008, including (according to date stamps) the colourful display on the southern exterior, that seems to have survived the purge.

If you've got this far, you might still (or again) be wondering what the beach venue was really all about. Some more background.

The beachfront walls and skateboard park were part of a city-wide program to combat visible vandalism (typically tagging, scribbling, and graffiti in general) in the CBD. High youth unemployment was blamed. Business people were upset. The local newspaper amplified concerns and a disturbed public increased their consumption of news. Developers found excuses for demolishing old (and treasured) buildings that were 'havens of vandalism' while casting blame on, and hence stigmatising, the homeless. And so on. Everyone had an agenda. Council was forced to act.

Circa 2010, Newcastle City Council - in a submission to the NSW Parliamentary Committee on Children and Young People's Inquiry - said:

The South Newcastle Beach area had been used as a quasi-legal graffiti wall since the early 1990s. From the beginning the wall operated on an ad hoc basis with a distinct lack of a management process for the use of the wall. As a result and over a period of time, the wall fell into a state of neglect and disrepair. Concerns over this disrepair and neglect led to the development of the South Newcastle Beach Aerosol Art Agreement.

The agreement seeks to re-introduce a management process to the area by involving all of the stakeholders including the aerosol art community. The agreement sets out rules for use, designated areas for freeform, senior artists, and community murals, and establishes a reference Group comprised of all stakeholders to oversee ongoing management of the agreement.

In the early 2000s the city was particularly dilapidated, especially along the ageing Hunter Street, including The Mall, and more particularly beyond the Civic to the west end. Everyone felt it. A natural law dictates that rundown properties attract vandalism and graffiti. And they did - especially highly visible ones along Hunter Street (as seen in our many photo essays under the street art menu). Therefore a lot of well-meaning effort went into offering spaces and programs for the prime suspects: youth, especially teenage unemployed.

Around year 2000 the Palais Royale building became a youth venue, which included graffiti workshops among its numerous creative activities, such as hip hop, rap writing, concerts, and skateboarding. A spate of vandalists' tagging in the CBD a few years later led to Palais and The Loft staffers negotiating the herein famous "Aerosol Art Agreement" that provided for continued and more disciplined use of the beachfront, as you see on the changeroom walls further above. A brave and optimistic attempt to herd cats.

More background can be found in this research paper on the role of community-based projects (PDF download requires free account):

The agreement re-introduces a managed presence and clean up at the area and provides a freeform wall for use by all; community murals designed and implemented by Loft members and a ‘Seniors Wall’. Young people are involved in the Reference Group which is responsible for the ongoing management of aerosol art activities in the area (Loft manager, interview, 2005 ).

The negative media debate about graffiti art occurred at a time when the existing Palais site is to be demolished for a development that incorporates a combination of apartment and retail spaces. As some youth visibly make their mark upon an increasingly commercialised eastern beachfront, the abolition of the Palais also symbolises the loss of ‘their’ spaces along the western areas of the Hunter riverfront.

3. Covered Walkway

This forbidding structure appears to be both a walkway and a sheltered observation area. The thorny surfaces made poor canvases but that did not deter the taggers and scribblers. In the final 2008 image, immediately below, it looks miraculously cleansed. One wonders what sorcery purged the paint from those porous surfaces. It stands before the northern end of The Wall (Section 1.) with the tunnel at left.

Above and below: For the record, it was 08:54 on 6th October 2004.

Above and below: With nothing much to say about it, I'll also note that these images were taken at 08:27 on 20th February, 2005.

Above: Also 2005. Looking south west.

4. North Wall Seating

Below: This photo is for context. It's one of the few that shows clearly where The Wall (section 1) technically ends and the esplanade wall seating (section 4) starts. The seating is at far right.

Ed: This section, being out of the way, was initially confused with identical wall seating along Church Street's wall. In the image above, that seating is in the distance at top left, beneath white fencwork. Consequently there were no 2004 pictures and only this wide shot below was taken in 2005. Furthermore, this confusion became an issue sorting these pictures twenty years on in deciding which was which. Some photos might be mis-categorised, therefore.

Above: View north east from northern tip of The Wall (section 1) at left, with sheltered seating (section 4) beyond. Royal Newcastle Hospital top left. Rock pool and ocean baths in distance.

North Wall Seating. 7th January 2007

"North of the tunnel is reserved for murals." Well, this edict was starting to wear thin, with the m murals shown below being tagged (with some abuse). And you'll note further below, in 2008, suffer badly.

Above and below: Bookends of the wide mural. The tagger/scribbler would appear to have a gripe with the youth venue, if not also with the muralist, whose name is crossed out.

Below: To view as a movie, tap or click image and an interactive movie opens in a new tab/window. Use image controls, mouse or gestures to pan and zoom.

North Wall Seating. 17th December 2008

Murals these might be - or once were - with a lot of tagging... well, defacement. Fyi, a "piece is graffiti with (at least) three colours," etc. A "mural" is a large-scale piece/s covering a wall, typically commissioned, or at least sanctioned. This was my last visit to the venue and cannot say if these represent a breakdown of the Aerosol Art Agreement. It would seem to be.

5. South Tunnel

The tunnel is a curious thing. It runs under Shortalnd Esplanade to connect the west side footpath to the beach. While it would have been far simpler to provide steps from the eastern footpath down to the beach, it was perceived at the time - the road being used by vehicles - to be the best and safest way of managing foot traffic, that ostensibly would come from the west.

It was a rather forbidding underpass. Avoided at night, or should the rattle of aerosol cans be heard.

The 2005 edict - "Tunnel and top wall is for senior artists" had some effect, as seen in the 2007-08 pics, but was still far too tempting for novice vandals.

As usual, first some location shots for context. In case you're wondering, yes, my first encounter with the tunnel, walking through on that day and emerging onto the landscape you see was... surreal!

2004.
Above: Two views of the beachside.
Below: Western roadside access.

Above and below: The beachside in 2005. Yikes!

Above: Roadside access in 2007.
Below: Beachside in 2008.

Now some views inside the southern pedestrian tunnel.

South Tunnel. 6th October 2004

Back then it was a wild and unsettling experience, entering this particular underpass.

Above and below: North and south wall panoramas respectively.

South Tunnel. 7th January 2007

South Tunnel. 17th December 2008

On this day there was (apparently) insufficient time to properly record the walls. And sadly I never returned to do so. But you get the general idea.