We made a short video to go with the latest blog on the Make Newcastle Work website: How Would You Improve Newcastle? Check it out. You’re sure to recognise some of the faces. Click here to watch the blog
One of the ideas to improve Newcastle was a new generation of venues . . . .
A smartly dressed crowd mingle under august windows, glasses of local wine in hand. There’s live music, a well-stocked bar, and cosy alcoves for the taking. The wine list is a celebration of the Hunter’s finest, and the setting is a superb example of Newcastle’s rich architectural history.
Sound like another hackneyed fantasy? It’s not. This was the scene that anyone strolling down Hunter Street last Thursday evening would have stumbled upon – a pop-up bar activating the Newcastle City Business Centre afterhours.
People of all age brackets, professions, and suburbs were there, and the general consensus among the crowd was that small bars have the potential to regularise this experience by strengthening Newcastle’s social infrastructure.
The gaps in our street life should therefore be treated for what they are: gaps in the market. The old stomping ground is deserted after five o’clock because it’s trumped by our living rooms. The pop-up bar was a rare opportunity for Novocastrians to enjoy nocturnal experiences that have become expected in most other cities the size of Newcastle. We went through the motions of having a sophisticated nightlife and it worked.
Opening our city centre to such venues is not only about giving more Novocastrians a place to go after hours, it’s about giving them another reason to celebrate our built-environment and the great narrative of Newcastle.
Elizabeth Farrelly, a columnist for The Sydney Morning Herald, described Newcastle “one of the country’s – maybe the world’s – most spectacularly sited towns”. Let’s show Sydney, and the world, that it looks just as beautiful under lamplight
