Sydney Observatory

In January 1900 an outbreak of bubonic plague generated some heavy-handed treatment from the authorities. For a time the area was quarantined, houses were compulsorily disinfected and residents suspected of having come in contact with the disease were ferried across to the quarantine station at North Head in the dead of the night. Of greater long-term significance, the hysteria that surrounded the outbreak gave the government the excuse it needed to resume all the wharves and the streets behind them and to start a massive redevelopment project. The view that the private sector could not efficiently manage the infrastructure of the port drove some of the greatest public works ever undertaken in Sydney ? the creation of modern wharves from Woolloomooloo to White Bay and the building of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Because the bridge was not built for decades and the process of demolition was slow, it is easy to overlook this as a reason for the post-plague resumptions, but residents had always understood this intention. In January 1902, the Daily Telegraph published a map showing the proposed 130-foot-wide (39.6-metre-wide) replacement for Princes Street, to carry the 'proposed North Shore railway' and the 'contemplated bridge over the harbour'. Princes Street belonged to The Rocks, not Millers Point, but the eventual building of the bridge had greater impact on Millers Point.