I Made A Short Film About Lost Sydney: 1860s-1930s | Archival Footage Enhanced with AI

Описание: Old Sydney Enhanced: 1860s-1930s | Australia's Lost Colonial Capital
Sydney across seven decades of transformation—from colonial port to Federation capital to modern metropolis, enhanced with AI from archival photographs and film.

This collection spans 1860s to 1930s: colonial townships with sandstone hotels, gaslit streets and horse-drawn traffic evolving into electric trams and motorcars, The Rocks before "slum clearance" demolished its oldest lanes, Circular Quay as a working industrial harbour crowded with ferry wharves and timber vessels, Victorian commercial palaces lining streets that barely existed a generation prior, the construction of the Harbour Bridge transforming the skyline forever, and beaches where surf culture was just beginning.

These decades captured Sydney's metamorphosis from rough convict outpost into a proper city—the construction of grand Victorian and Edwardian edifices, the demolition of Georgian Sydney, the modernisation that erased almost everything built before 1850. The 1920s brought jazz-age architecture, the Bridge changed everything in 1932, and by the late 1930s the Sydney of the convict and gold rush eras had been almost completely obliterated.

The footage shows buildings, streets, and harbour views unrecognisable to modern Sydneysiders—a city before the Opera House, a Bridge under construction, industrial waterfront that's now luxury apartments, tram-lined streets that became car-choked freeways, surf clubs before beach culture became an industry, and hotels that have long since been demolished or sanitised beyond recognition.

All imagery digitally enhanced with AI from State Library NSW, National Library of Australia, and private archival collections.

Timestamps:
00:00:04 - Colonial township, Steyne Hotel
00:00:14 - Sydney Harbour industrial waterfront, Bushells Tea factory
00:00:25 - The Rocks sandstone lane, horse-drawn cart
00:00:34 - Circular Quay wooden wharf crossing
00:00:45 - Hyde Park Corner, Reuben Brasch department store
00:00:55 - Bondi Beach with canvas bathing tents
00:01:05 - Circular Quay wharves and ferry terminals
00:01:15 - Tram junction, Town Hall construction
00:01:26 - Tamarama or Bronte Beach with clifftop housing
00:01:35 - Randwick Motor Bus Service No.295
00:01:44 - Circular Quay waterfront (pre-Opera House, pre-Bridge)
00:01:55 - Town Hall construction with tram lines
00:02:05 - George Street with Harbour Bridge visible
00:02:14 - Federation-era commercial building
00:02:20 - Sydney Harbour Bridge construction
00:02:28 - Roxy Cinema Spanish Mission Revival
00:02:39 - Quarantine Station on harbour headland
00:02:49 - Harbour Bridge mid-construction with ferry wharves
00:02:54 - Bridge construction workers on arch span
00:03:04 - Colonial Mutual Chambers, George Street
00:03:15 - 1930s-40s traffic on completed Harbour Bridge
00:03:24 - Paragon Hotel with Tooheys delivery trucks
00:03:35 - 1920s-30s street crowd
00:03:45 - Art Deco KB Lager Hotel
00:03:49 - 1940s-50s surfboard lineup
00:03:55 - Bondi Pavilion with longboard surfers

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