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Standing in Makespace, one of Newcastle’s most colourful and eclectic new stores, it’s hard to imagine this was an empty, ugly eyesore just six months ago. But this beast-to-beauty makeover is being happily repeated throughout the CBD as part of a project to breathe life back into the city centre.
Known as Renew Newcastle, the idea is simple: use derelict and abandoned shopfronts to house...
Floyd Tighe collected traditional Aboriginal art for more than 20 years, not for its investment value but, because it tells the history of his Aboriginal culture.
Never in those 20-or-so years had he ever consid-ered opening his own gallery but now Tighe is the proud operator of Newcastle’s first all-Aboriginal art gallery – Biami Mara.
Biami Mara, which means Creation Spirit in the traditional ...
"Australian favela chic. Step one, creepy, long-abandoned buildings; step two, free wifi"
From techno-pioneer and Wired Magazine blogger Bruce Sterling.
What becomes of a once-mighty centre of industry when the businesses fail or move away, and the jobs evaporate?
In this era of industrial decline, it is a question being asked of many places around the world. In the former steel town of Newcastle, there were over a hundred vacant shops and offices on the main shopping strip. But, six months ago television presenter and writer, Marcus Westbury s...
By Harvey Grennan.
WHEN Marcus Westbury was a boy growing up in Newcastle, his grandmother would take him shopping in Hunter Street, then the thriving retail spine of the city.
Today Novocastrians do their shopping at mega-shopping malls sprinkled through the suburbs. There are more than 100 empty shops in the CBD and even the grand Victorian sandstone post office, once the proud centrepiece of N...
Marcus Westbury is changing part of his original home town of Newcastle from a dead zone of empty shops to a vibrant precinct of artists, craftspeople, architects and jewellers.
Listen to the audio here. The Renew Newcastle story starts half way through the program.
