Mann Street Gosford January 2017

This is the footbridge from which I took the photos below, looking from the Gateway Building end to the railway station end. It runs above Mann Street from Gosford railway station to the Gateway Building opposite. The back of Gateway lets out onto Watt Street and the Post Office. The style of the footbridge suggests it was built in the 1970’s or early 1980’s. It serves Gosford well, preventing postal and office workers from being run over crossing Mann Street.

Looking north

Looking north up the slope of Mann Street from the footbridge. The intersection is with Faunce Street and the railway station and bus station are only just out of the photo to the left.

Nothing much in this photo has changed since January.

The faces on the wall were painted around 10 years ago and are portraits of local people.

Looking south

Mann Street and the footbridge I have marked in red, also Brisbane Water, the estuary. The map itself is a photo of the one at the Mann Street end of William Street, just near the pedestrian crossing.

Mann Street is the main street of Gosford. Coming into Gosford from the south you cross the railway line at Donnison Street and take a left turn into Mann Street at the Union Hotel. Coming in from the north, you come down the Pacific Highway and its name changes to Mann Street at the Dwyer Street intersection.

We’ll be exploring more of Gosford’s city centre in future posts.

Looking south down the east side of Mann Street, in January 2017. With the Mann Street building sites still in the demolition stages, there have been no significant changes to this view since the photo was taken.

Nearest the camera on the left are office buildings then a few small shops, including a Chinese restaurant that’s been there for years, the 1920’s Hotel Gosford, the stripe of sunlight across the road marks the intersection of Erina Street, the Imperial Arcade (white with brown lines) and the tall building in the middle distance is the Gosford City Council (GCC) building. From the GCC building, the road slopes down past the circular church and an old apartment tower and around the corner to join up with Dane Drive running along the foreshore.

Between Erina Street and William Street, on the east (left) side of Mann Street, there are several bus stop seats and one bus stop serving all the buses that turn south (right) out of the bus station and head down Mann Street.

The GCC building was built in the 1970’s and is covered in pebble-crete. The facade has been updated recently and there’s a nice bit of garden at the front too. Next to it is the Conservatorium of Music and the old police station and gaol (jail). I’ll post photos of those soon.

This photo looks down the west (right) side of the Mann Street view above. Again, no big changes since this photo was taken in January 2017.

In the foreground on the right is Burns Park and the little tourist information building under the tree. Burns Park has a path through it, just out of the photo on the right, and several steps up to the railway station. There’s also a wall fountain.

Behind the tourist information building and in front of the white buildings is part of Burns Crescent, which takes buses and taxis past the railway station entrance and to the bus station and taxi rank.

The white buildings contain a podiatrist, a dentist and several offices. On the other side of the stripe of sunlight that is Erina Street, there’s a row of small shops, a little arcade (Carbow Arcade) and a paved laneway leading to the Gosford City Council carpark.

The carpark is one of two multi-storey carparks close to Mann Street. When there’s a game on at the stadium, parking in Gosford is almost impossible. Most people park in West Gosford or North Gosford and walk or just get the train to the game. The stadium’s proper name is Grahame Park and one of the stadium’s recent sponsored names was Bluetongue Stadium. The stadium is called something else now.

Between Erina Street and Donnison Street, just south of the pedestrian crossing and on the west side, there is a big old shop called Wally’s World of Discounts. Wally’s World has been going to seed for some time and we now know that’s because it’s one of the building sites approved on Mann Street. The back of the building has already been demolished and you can see the cleaned up area from Baker Street and in the photo below.

(Demolished back of Wally’s World, front of building in photo above)

In the middle of this photo, looking south down Mann Street again, there is a white block of apartments and to its right, partly hidden by a palm tree. there is a second block. The second block is on Baker Street and the one in the middle is on Mann Street. They were built 10 – 15 years ago and are probably full of commuters, given how close they are to Gosford Station and how easy it is to get the train from Gosford to Sydney.

At Hornsby, commuters can stay on the train and go down through the inner western suburbs of Sydney via Strathfield or get off and change to the North Shore line down through Chatswood and North Sydney and so over the Sydney Harbour Bridge (the famous one) across the harbour and into Sydney’s beating heart. A lot of people who live in Gosford and Woy Woy work in Sydney and come home every night to our beautiful little towns and suburbs on the NSW Central Coast. You’d be mad not to live here.

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