MACQUARIE STREET

Description

Essentials about Macquarie Street in brief

Sydney is the oldest city in Australia and Macquarie Street is, so to speak, the historic mile of the city. Along it are most and the most important historical buildings of Sydney and also the main political institutions of the state of New South Wales. Macquarie Street connects the Sydney Opera House in the north with Hyde Park in the south.

The location of Macquarie Street

The street is named after Lachlan Macquarie, who was governor of New South Wales in the early 19th century. Macquarie initiated the construction of the first significant public buildings in Sydney and essentially laid out the layout for the city’s street network. Macquarie Street was to form the eastern end of the then city center and separate it from the green spaces further east, The Domain and the Royal Botanic Gardens.

The buildings in Macquarie Street

Among the buildings commissioned by Macquarie are the Hyde Park Barracks, which still stand today, St. James’ Church and Sydney Hospital. The latter, once the only major hospital in all of Australia, was appropriately sized. However, it soon turns out that the hospital was oversized, which is why parts of the hospital were soon used for political-administrative purposes. The north wing became the Parliament of New South Wales and the south wing the Sydney Mint.

Today, the buildings of almost all major political institutions of the state of New South Wales are located on Macquarie Street: the Parliament, Government House and the Courts. In addition, some of Australia’s important institutions are also located here, such as the Federal Court of Australia (Australia’s highest federal court) and the Reserve Bank of Australia (Australia’s federal bank).