Charlotte Street, flood of 1864
Charlotte Street, Brisbane
Looking north along Charlotte Street from the corner of George Street during the flood of 19-22 March 1864. To the right of the frame you can see the sign for the Brisbane Courier newspaper office.
The area itself was known locally as Frog's Hollow. An area that Raymond Evans, in Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History, describes as being at the time:
"[...] dilapidated, unsanitary zone was [...] associated with moral decay, for it was the home of Brisbane's red light district, with its cluster of brothels in Margaret Street, owned by Mary O'Brien and Marie Naylor, as well as Brisbane's small Chinatown, located virtually at the centre of Frog's Hollow, along Albert and Mary Streets. Here, Chinese shops, residences and boarding houses subsisted alongside gambling rooms, opium parlours, pubs and sly-grog shops. To these 'hot-beds of crime and vice' it was said, 'prowling gangs of wolf-like larrikins' were attracted like magnets, mixing with a 'filthy swarm of cursing slatterns' and young blue and white-collar workers 'out on a spree.' The area was forbidden territory, exciting, dirty and dangerous; and, in any one year, yielded up hundreds of charges of 'obscene language,' disorderly conduct and riotous behaviour [...] due to the over-policing of its streets."
From: Evans, Raymond and Carole Ferrier with Jeff Rickertt (eds.) Radical Brisbane: An Unruly History, Carlton North, Vic., Vulgar Press, 2004
Then and now...
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