“They lie, the men who tell us, for reasons of their own,
That want is here a stranger, and that misery’s unknown;
For where the nearest suburb and the city proper meet
My windowsill is level with the faces in the street”
— ‘Faces In The Street’ by Henry Lawson
In 1969, Labor Mayor of Brisbane, Clem Jones, declared that the Brisbane City Council (BCC) was going to shut down the trams. In the early 1970s under the ‘Wilbur Smith Plan’ the BCC replaced trams with freeways. Does this sound like the LNP’s Adrian Shrinner digging tunnels for the Brisbane Metro? A one time press photographer, Graham Garner, thought: what can I do? During the last days of the trams, Graham went out to every tram terminus and each tram line and took photos.
Right outside the old tram depot at Buranda, Greens Mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan and two (2) Greens candidates Kath Angus (Coorparoo) and River Kearns (Tennyson) introduce their proposal for a new tram corridor going along Ipswich Road from Southside to Northside, from Mount Gravatt (Southside Darkside) to Hamilton (where white people live). [I’d like to book a tram ticket to Mt Gravatt, please.]
Let’s have a listen to what the greens Mayoral candidate Jonathan Sriranganathan has to say about these proposals.
What foresight! Thanks Graham. Here are some of the photos that Graham and other photographers shot in the last days of the trams (click to enlarge).
