How magnificent Sydney once looked.

😍5:33 The gentleman cleaning the park bench for the lady, absolutely charming.

This is the Sydney of my ancestors. I love seeing how it was for them.

I used to be fascinated by the old wooden Circular Quay jetties and ferries of the 60s. Everything creaked and moved with the water and arrival of the boats. Catching the ferry to Taronga was an absolute joy as a child.

this is amazing. this channel is so under rated. people will be watching these clips for decades, if not longer to come. thank you for your efforts whoever you are, dark room dwelling film nerds

6:01 I'm wondering if the young trees surrounded by metal guards, leading up to the NSW Art Gallery, are the same LARGE Morton Bay Figs that grace the Domain today? I am immensely grateful to the landscape architects from a century ago, who designed and planted the magnificent trees we get to enjoy today.

Amazing. I love old films about Sydney. ❤

What a beautiful film thanks so much for sharing. 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻

Thanks NFSA, invaluable film and great work to restore it ( and thanks for making it available here). Bravo!

Times were simpler then, more carefree, trams ruled before the dirty diesel buses replaced them. No self respecting man or woman would be seen in public, back then, without a nice hat. Thank you NFSA, your efforts are much appreciated.

Fascinating. Some scenes have barely changed. Others are almost unrecognizable.

A beautiful city still, it appears to be dated pre 1923, else the harbour bridge would have been shown. Thanks so much for the effort you make to keep our history alive.

5:20 Though only shown on a few frames, there is vision of three women dressed in white and a set of cricket stumps. In the late-1920s there was surge of interest in women’s cricket and one place they would play and practice was on The Domain which had pitches up until WW2.

Beautiful restoration thank you NFSA Films.

Wow! NFSA you have excelled again. You can tell how much work has gone into restoring this footage. Magnificent time capsule of Sydney life returning after WW1. Thank you .

Loved seeing my home town as it was 95 years ago and trying to guess what streets and buildings it showed. Great work, thank you!

Sydney was such an interesting place with shops and pubs everywhere. So many buildings of distinction too before the developers and architects destroyed it with their bland high rise lacking in all merit other than the ability to claim my building is bigger and higher and blander than yours. Hardly any pubs or Australians or Australian made goods left in the place.

Beautiful architecture and that's how (as a Sydneysider) I recognised most of these spots. The buildings of today's Sydney- soulless, lifeless, classless. All for a quick buck. Thank you NFSA. Job well done. ❤

Congratulations NFSA for this marvellous time capsule. You are doing great and important work for future generations to study, marvel and enjoy. Back to work!

I grew up in Sydney's outer suburbs from the 1960s to the late 1990s. I attended the Christian Bros High School opposite the Domain and next to the St. Mary's Cathedral during the 1970s. I would travel to St, James station on the old Red Rattlers and gawk at all those lovely attractive young female office workers commuting and smoking on the train. The city is not the same today as it was back in those days. I now live in another state up north.

I was born in 1960, kind of at the tail-end of the - well, I guess you could call it the "old-fashioned" era. I still have vague memories of riding with Mum on the trams in Sydney, but the days of hat-wearing and getting dressed up to go into town were dying out even then. I used to love Sydney, up until about the very early 80s, but then it started to change in a number of ways. I moved up to the Mid-North Coast about 15 years ago and never looked back. I couldn't bear to live in that traffic-choked, overcrowded, soulless city anymore and I'll be happy if I never set foot in it again. It's a shame my feelings toward Sydney soured, but that's life. This video is wonderful. It was shot somewhat before my time, but there were enough vestiges of that period remaining when I was a little kid to spark a few personal recollections. Many thanks!

Wow. This was incredible. It was too early for the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Thanks for posting

@6:10 The young Jackson they refer to is Cricket Legend Archie Jackson who would sadly die only 5 years later at the age of 23.

Wow look 👀 how people dressed in those days.

Watching this and then thinking nearly everyone in these clips , has died , maybe a couple still walk the earth

Decent architecture ,was a pleasure to see ,the 'faster Trams' great ,and vey few parking meters and traffic lights (a necessity now days), it shoed just how laid back it was prior to Oct 1929

Thanks for making another great bit of history more available. At 6:42 good to see these multi story residences called flats. Lately real estate people have convinced a new generation that they are apartments to avoid the negative connotations flats developed over the years.

Thank you for a great glimpse of Sydney in the past

Amazing film...love all the footage...the cars are amazing & the fashions, & everyone wearing hats.

The Sydney I grew up in the 1970’s and 1980’s bears more of a resemblance to Sydney as seen in this film than Sydney now- cars and transport not withstanding.

Much nicer then than now, that’s for sure.

Great footage. Thanks for posting.

Just imagine those "Red Rattlers" were on the line right up to 1994!

What a city ❤️

Those Sydney and Manly ferries were still there in the 1960's although they had been converted from steam to diesel.

6:08 The ‘Jackson’ referred to in relation to the young cricketers relates to batsman Archie Jackson who was more famous as an emerging superstar in 1928 than Don Bradman who would soon come to eclipse him. Jackson tragically died of tuberculosis in 1932 at the age of 23.

Watch this film for it shows a way of Australia life that will never come again.

Sydney used to look beautiful. Shame what is become now. Hopefully it can one day reclaim its sandstone beauty

The dress code back then was a reflection of their level of moral integrity, in contrast to today.

I remember those toast rack trams very well, but the cars pre-date me a bit!

Wonderful vision.

Most of those buildings are still there.

Fabulous fillum

George st busier then than now. The city is quite these days.

Pretty sure that was Sprngfield Lodge in the Cross towards the end looking a bit classier then

Wearing a suit to the beach!

06:41: quite interesting, since it was after the 30s and 40s that flats suiting housing choice and organic density were banned Australia-wide for no good reasons. Hopefully we can get back to that potential for egality, with not just towers of the business district and sprawl of suburbia, but human growth and accessibility

Sydney looked like a nicer place back then. It's a great pity most of its old architecture disappeared to make way for the concrete, glass and steel ugliness of today.

Late 20s I would say looking at the fashions. Seeing all those young boys playing cricket, most probably wound up fighting in ww2, I wonder how many got through it. Funny to think that life is simply a stage where we all play a part, some just play longer parts and good part, others get a horrible part to play. One thing for certain, non of us are immortal.

Wonderful bit of history! Surprised by the length of womens skirts. Did not know below the knees was already a thing in 1928.

So sad the era of mass hat wearing has now gone, when people went out they dressed up and not down like today

In 1928 - Sydney's population was apparently 1.1 million. 20% of today's. It had suburbs from the north to south, east to the west and regional centres across NSW. But the footage shows busy beaches, busy streets and a similar amount of people, traffic and population density as today. It also shows high rise inner city living and property sprawl across the harbour again with what appears as similar housing density. All this 100 years ago. How is that possible ? And today, Sydney's "busy-ness" is boosted by very large numbers of visitors, tourists and people passing through. So often his-story is not our story. Did Sydney have more people in 1928 than is reported ? Why would its hectic streets, harbour and beaches be as busy then as it is today ?

Awesome! In 5 years AI will be able to clean up all the dust and scratches, add colour and probably sound. That'd be something to behold too!

I was checking out the truck at 2.34 with its skinny solid tyres and Brakeless front end when I noticed a Dog travelling down the road perched on its roof! Obviously the drivers dog and as the truck only had rear wheel brakes as just about all only had in the era, the trucks slow top speed and lethargic speed retardation would mean that the canine would not have to worry sliding down the road in an emergency stop!

I miss the old city of sydney before the greedy corrupt developers took over.

if you ever need sound design to bring this to life IM me

2:42 does anyone no wat type of car/truck this was wit a house on the back of it or do you think they were just moving the house lol

Everyone in public well dressed and wearing a hat, not like the absolute slobs who go out in public today.

05:19 - way ahead of their time

What was that guy doing on the outside at the front of the bus whilst it was moving @ around 7.07 ? Cleaning the windscreen or changing the sign ? Imagine seeing that today .

1:23 Kind of looks like Flinders Street Station in Melbourne from that angle

I'm assuming the frames per second on this film would have had to been calibrated and adjusted for the correct speed playback?

My How things have changed for the Worse

Such a shame politicians let developers vandalise this beautiful city.

before the depression

Graceful flats? Couldn't say that about todays functional boxes!

These days we dress like crap. 🤣

Not a bare head in sight .

I said it before born in the wrong time. To many high rises now not enough homes

2:42 Anyone know what street this is?

Kind of wished the city had implemented rules similar to Paris to reduce a "wall" near the waterfront. High rises at the waterfront boxed everyone else in. It would be nice to have a "step" height requirement so buildings closer to the waterfront can't be higher than buildings behind, creating a step towards the city centre. Also those trams look nice. The city centre should have less car centric design. Australia no longer build its own cars, there's no need to artificially support such industry anymore.

Looks like late 1920s..it's shame they ever got rid of the Trams ..what a stupid move that was

How to ruin a city. Sydney is an eyesore these days, full of cheap, soulless and ugly modern buildings. They should have kept the old city and made a new city as they do in many countries so that they don’t turn into tackytown.

Why hasn’t this been restored, colourised, Motion stabilised, etc?

kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i9KVi5ymu8ycqoU.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i9KVi5ymu8ycqoU.html kzfaq.info/get/bejne/i9KVi5ymu8ycqoU.html I love spotting the utes!

Sorry, but there are dozens of KZfaqrs out there, restoring, stabilising, colourising and digitising, along with FPS correction, old videos from 19th and early 20th centuries. All this with next to no budget. The NFSA should be the gold standard. Especially if you keep appealing for more government funding, as you do. This is just looks like you found an old film of Sydney; quickly digitised it (not even in 4K) and uploaded to YT. Also, no sound of the period. Do better, please.

Looks like American streets of that time, chaotic, no greenery, oversized buildings... European cities look so much nicer.