Beneath the surface of today's tourist district lies the decisive fight that kept it standing.
A redevelopment plan, and resistance
In 1970 the NSW government approved a plan to redevelop all of The Rocks into luxury housing, hotels and offices, without public consultation Fact. Fifth-generation Rocks resident Nita McRae led the Rocks Residents Action Group (RRAG) in petitioning against it; when that stalled, they turned to the NSW Builders Labourers Federation (BLF) in 1971 Fact.
The world's first green ban
Led by Jack Mundey, Joe Owens and Bob Pringle, the BLF introduced the world's first "green ban," with union members refusing to demolish heritage buildings Fact. Mundey coined the term "green ban" in February 1973; it later influenced the naming of Germany's Green Party Fact.
1973, resistance on the rooftops
When non-union workers began demolishing heritage buildings on Playfair Street in August 1973, more than 100 workers walked off the job to stop it. That October, residents and union members occupied rooftops and trees in protest, and Mundey was arrested Fact. More than 50 green bans were imposed across NSW from 1971-74, protecting not just The Rocks but Woolloomooloo, Glebe, and the Royal Botanic Garden Fact. Federal intervention ended the movement in 1974-75, but new heritage and planning laws had been introduced by then, and The Rocks survived Fact.
Part of Argyle Street was renamed Jack Mundey Place in 2007, a large mural went up on Globe Street in 2013, and a nearby park bears Nita McRae's name Fact — tracing these traces on foot becomes its own route.
This episode is the hinge where this series moves from pretty guide to journalism. Don't read it as a closing victory, though — a reversal is waiting half a century later.