Area Info

North Sydney Area Info

North Sydney is a suburb and commercial district on the lower North Shore of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. North Sydney is located 3 kilometres northern of the Sydney central business district and is the administrative centre for the local government area of North Sydney Council.

History

The Aborigines on the southern side of Sydney Harbour called the north side warung which meant the other side. However, the Aborigines on the northern side also used the same name to describe the southern side.

The first name used by European settlers was Hunterhill, named after a property owned by Thomas Muir (1765-1799), a Scottish political reformer. He purchased land in 1794 near where the north-east pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge is now located and built a house which he named after his childhood home. The area then became known as St Leonards and this name applied to the whole area north to Gore Hill. The township of St Leonards was laid out in 1836 in what is now North Sydney, bounded by what is now Miller, Walker, Lavender and Berry Streets. By 1846 there were 106 houses here and by 1859, the commercial centre had extended from Milsons Point to Miller Street. A bus service operated by Jeremiah Wall ran between Milsons Point and North Sydney Shops, so North Sydney slowly developed its own identity.

The North Sydney municipality was incorporated in 1890 and after many disputes settled on the name 'North Sydney'. The post office which opened in 1854 as St Leonards was changed to North Sydney in 1890. The first public school which opened in 1874 as St Leonards was renamed North Sydney in 1910.

Commercial Area

The commercial district of North Sydney includes the second largest concentration of office buildings in New South Wales, with a large representation from the advertising and information technology industries. Advertising, marketing businesses and associated trades such as printing have traditionally dominated the business life of the area though these have been supplanted to a certain extent by information technology businesses. Corporations whose offices are in North Sydney include Cisco Systems, Novell, Sun Microsystems, AGL, AAMI and until October 2007, Optus.

Unlike other major suburban hubs within the Sydney metropolitan area, North Sydney has limited shopping facilities and almost no Sunday trading. There are no department stores and only two medium sized supermarkets (Aldi & IGA). The main shopping complex is the Greenwood Plaza, which is connected to North Sydney station. Berry Square is another shopping centre in Berry Street, formerly known as North Sydney Shopping World.

Reference: Wikipedia