A century ago, Pier 2/3 at Sydney’s Walsh Bay was opened by a city in need of a clean start and a post-pandemic boost.

Bubonic plague had arrived at the bay’s wharves a generation earlier, spread quickly by the rats that thrived in the unsanitary conditions. Not only was it dirty, but the waterfront infrastructure between Dawes Point and Millers Point in the centre of Sydney Harbour was inefficient. It could only cope with clippers, of the kind that had first disturbed the cockle-gathering and spearfishing of the local Gadigal people.