Especially when they are . <| sep |> I can ' t believe that the 1911 that rguns made you buy contributed to a nd . I ' m finding that pretty hilarious . Edit can ' t post from phone for some reason . ?<| sep |> Thats just not true . Umbrage uses protego to block centaur arrows . <| sep |> Someone please tell these business leaders that Trump and his supporters aren ' t interested in real life factsfor them it ' s reach a decision , then write and broadcast the facts to justify it . We ' re in for a wild ride for the next couple of yearsand I may be one of the first with the following bumper sticker , Don ' t blame me , I voted for Hillarylike most Americans . <| sep |> If paywalled , you ' ll miss the pix But here ' s the textSydney is a city divided along heritage battlelines . On one side the NSW government and its development partners are pushing through a swath of state significant projects , among them a new eastern suburbs light rail and a western suburbs freeway link . Lining up on the other side is a chorus of heritage advocates determined to speak for the trees , for the historyrich homes and for the city ' s iconic buildings and institutions . Even the management of the muchcelebrated Sydney Opera House has come into the firing line recently on account of a suite of new activities that heritage sympathisers contend are at odds with the site ' s historic status . In the middle of this , the Museum of Sydney has opened an exhibition , Demolished Sydney , that reveals how the Emerald City has a rich tradition of trampling on its history . Exhibition curator Nicola Teffer says the timing is coincidental and that the exhibition has been in the pipeline for four years . The brief was to look at the way the city has shapeshifted over its history , she says . That shapeshifting is particularly pronounced because the city sprang up higgledypiggledy from convict settlement , and the land on which it is built is undulating , as well as hemmed in by water and mountains . The demolition of Hoffnung ' s building in Pitt Street in 1939 . Picture Ernie Bowen . The demolition of Hoffnung ' s building in Pitt Street in 1939 . Picture Ernie Bowen . Sydney ' s built heritage was always vulnerable , Teffer says . Part of the problem is the city was never planned . Clive Lucas , heritage architect and chairman of the National Trust , says the thirst for renewal is a quintessential Sydney trait . Some say we ' ve never got over being a convict settlement , he says , and there ' s plenty of wheelers and dealers and pickpockets . I don ' t know whether this is true . Teffer ' s exhibition examines 11 significant buildings that have been lost to Sydney , including the Commissariat buildings at Circular Quay , which were the two oldest government buildings in NSW , demolished to make way in 1939 for the Maritime Services Board building , now the Museum of Contemporary Art . In the 1920 s and 30 s there was such an embrace of Sydney as a young , dynamic , funloving , progressive city that it didn ' t really feel it had a past that was particularly valuable , she says . At the end of the 30 s , when the Commissariat buildings were pulled down , it was a relatively new thing to agitate for preservation . The Garden Palace , a grand exhibition pavilion in the Botanic Gardens of equivalent significance to Melbourne ' s Royal Exhibition Building , was lost to fire in 1882 , just three years after it was built . It wasn ' t replaced . The Fort Macquarie Tram Depot at Bennelong Point was demolished in 1958 to make way for the Sydney Opera House . It is likely impossible to find any living person who opposes the world heritage Opera House , but Teffer ' s exhibition reveals that before the tram sheds , Bennelong Point was home to Fort Macquarie . It was also a site for limestone production , and before white settlement it was a rocky outcrop with unfettered views from the heads of Sydney Harbour to Parramatta River . If the tram sheds hadn ' t been demolished , the old fort , then the Opera House might never have been built , she says . It ' s taken a while for Sydneysiders to see the value of their own built environments . Cadman ' s Cottage at The Rocks is the oldest surviving residential building in Sydney . A remaining fragment of Edwardian architecture , the sandstone cottage in the shadow of the Overseas Passenger Terminal was the original home for Sydney ' s coxswains . The exhibition really is about the nature of change in the city , Teffer says , looking at what those cycles have been , what the drivers have been and what are the products of the protest . Sydney is in the grip of the biggest civic building boom since the runup to the 2000 Sydney Olympics . The Baird Liberal government is using funds raised by the sale of electricity assets to reimagine the city . The NSW government has earmarked the heritage Powerhouse Museum site in innercity Ultimo for sale , and the construction of a new museum in Parramatta . A campaign against that move has resulted in an upper house inquiry , which is still under way . National Trust NSW chief executive Brian Scarsbrick says there is long list of heritage battles during the past two years . A campaign to save the brutaliststyle Sirius apartment building in The Rocks failed , and the public housing complex will be demolished . There will be a highrise there , you watch , he says . The National Trust failed to save the Sydney Harbour Control Tower and campaigned against demolition work beginning on the WestConnex freeway link in Sydney ' s inner west before an environmental impact report was released . Dozens of heritage trees also were cut down along Anzac Parade and Alison Road near Centennial Park in Sydney ' s east . It was done by stealth and an apparent mandate as a state significant project , Scarsbrick says . When the state government deems a project to be state significant , he says , it switches off heritage controls . The government is preparing to sell 193 former maritime workers houses at Millers Point at The Rocks , despite the National Trust ' s campaign for 99 year leases that would bind inhabitants to tighter development controls . If the government keeps selling the houses off freehold it ' ll be another ' demolition Sydney ', Scarsbrick says . It ' s the most outstanding piece of vandalism perpetrated on The Rocks in many years . He adds The first thing a conquering army does when they go into territories is destroy the iconography of an area to demoralise the public . I ' m not saying the government is trying to do that but the effect is the same and the population is getting demoralised . Rowe Street in 1929 it ' s loss ' was a tragedy for the city ', says the National Trust ' s Clive Lucas . Rowe Street in 1929 it ' s loss ' was a tragedy for the city ', says the National Trust ' s Clive Lucas . They don ' t realise people come to the city to look at the heritage , not the skyscrapers . For all of demolished Sydney , there have been wins , the romanesque revival Queen Victoria Building being among the most significant . Built in the late 19 th century and spanning an entire city block , the Queen Victoria Building fell into disrepair , to the point where it was under threat of demolition in the 1960 s . After a concerted campaign , it was saved in 1971 and eventually restored and reopened as an upmarket shopping centre in 1986 . Two of the city ' s most significant public buildings are Hyde Park Barracks and The Mint , which were threatened in the 40 s . Teffer says those buildings had been earmarked for destruction by the government because a Macquarie Street beautification scheme called for modern law courts and houses of parliament , which eventually were built across the road . The organisation now known as the National Trust emerged in 1945 out of this campaign . The National Trust ' s Lucas says One doesn ' t regret losing the tram shed for the Opera House , but often that ' s not the case . To lose Rowe Street was a tragedy for the city . Rowe Street was a busy little district that , if it still existed , would boast the ambience of Melbourne ' s muchpraised laneways . Instead it was razed to make way for the MLC Centre . The present government is very keen on developing , Lucas says . To put in WestConnex freeway , it ' s cutting a slice off Haberfield , which was a model Edwardian suburb . We don ' t regret new roads or trams , but can ' t you do it more neatly rather than this cavalier attitude of crash or crash through ? Demolished Sydney is at the Museum of Sydney until April 17 .