Anzac Parade circa 1949

Thanks for the nice comments people. It’s great to be able to share these old pics with you. I’ll have to look further as I am sure I have some photos of King’s Avenue Bridge under construction. An old 1933 map of Canberra shows the area in front of the War Memorial as ANZAC Park which accounts for the planting of many trees down each side, so even back then that area ws identified as some kind of special memorial.

Work on the lake started around 1961 with the construction of the dam and the shaping of the lake bed and walls. They moved a lot of dirt around over the next couple of years. It started to fill in December 1963 when my wife was in the old Royal Canberra Hospital having our second child. It filled completely in 1964 after a lot of unexpected rain and from that day on the character of Canberra was changed. It started to look like the National Capital that Burley Griffin envisaged.

Love these. Thanks again for sharing.

Skidd Marx said :

MWF said :

http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/115873/nominationform.pdf

Perhaps?

I can’t see them giving a “Canberra Gold” Chief Minister’s award to someone who hasn’t lived here in 20 years and actually hates the place. Great pics though.

I don’t know how you formed that opinion Skidd but I certainly don’t appreciate it.
Canberra is a beautiful city and very dear to my heart. I was born and bred there, married and raised 3 kids there and I intend to be buried there. What I am against is self government and what it has done to the City. I have no idea how long you have lived in Canberra but maybe you have not been there long enough to know what it used to be like.

MWF said :

http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/115873/nominationform.pdf

Perhaps?

I can’t see them giving a “Canberra Gold” Chief Minister’s award to someone who hasn’t lived here in 20 years and actually hates the place. Great pics though.

Do we really want Michael Buick’s massive, brutalist war memorial (don’t we have one of those at the top of the parade?) wrecking the view? (See Stateline a week ago)
It’s so bad, you can’t even find the plans for it on the NCA website (NCA sponsored a competition for this monstrosity apparently).

http://www.cmd.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0007/115873/nominationform.pdf

Perhaps?

carnardly said :

if you’ve got any more, please show them too.

Yes please!

Wow. I knew Torrens Street Braddon had changed a lot over the recent past but didn’t appreciate just how much. A bit of a pity really. So many of the trees are gone.

Lake Burley Griffin was completed in 1964, I believe.

Those are awesome! Thanks for sharing.