Broadmeadow was famously known as “Nineways.”
It was, well, still is, the intersection of nine streets. Maybe a world record? Technically, you’ll find ten streets, looking at a map.
A roundabout handled this complexity without fuss and, as still they do in so many great cities, motorists and pedestrians wove their patient paths around this magic circle.
Then, sadly, and according to the wisdom of an era, someone decided to flatten Newcastle’s very own “Piccadilly Circus” and apply the strictures and mind-numbing monotony of motoring’s great curse (and occasional saviour): traffic lights.
Broadmeadow, thus doomed, remains to this day a mere intersection.
Image ~ NSW State Library
Above: Broadmeadow, NSW, 1953 showing roundabout – yes, with people
enjoying the view from the middle .. or maybe road workers surveying their
havoc. Top right is the fabulous Century Theatre whose awning fell off in
the 1989 earthquake, so the wreckers pounced. In the distance is a Coke
& Coal Co’s gasometer, and a skyfull of industrial particulates
The place is still getting cleaned up (2016) and so becomes less interesting, and more like any everywhere else.
Here’s some ambiance from a decade ago.
Note, Broadmeadow’s rail bridge underpass here and Gully Line watercourse bridge here have their own articles.
February 2007
Under the road at the "Gully Line"
Click the images below for interactive panoramas. Use mouse or gestures to pan and zoom
Behind Brown Road, a lane off Moira Road in February 2007
And in May 2016
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From Moira Road
Under the rail overpass near Broadmeadow Station
Lions International, Brown Road, in 2007
Police Youth Citizen Club in Curley Road, Broadmeadow, in May 2016.
Click below for an interactive panorama. Use mouse or gestures to pan and zoom.
Lane and 34 Jackson Street in May 2016.
