Sydney Mayor Clover Moore to change name of Barangaroo’s Napoleon Plaza after ‘white people’ complaints

EXCLUSIVE: Clover Moore is changing the name of Sydney’s new Napoleon Plaza, near Barangaroo, after receiving just a handful of complaints.

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LORD Mayor Clover Moore is changing the name of Sydney’s new Napoleon Plaza, near Barangaroo, after receiving just nine complaints — including that “there are too many places in the city named after white people”.

Other residents complained the plaza’s title, named through a historic link to the French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, would ensure a European “dictator” is added to the map, lending “credibility to the perception of Australians as cultural yobs”.

Another person formally complained to Ms Moore’s City of Sydney: “The name only reflects recent history and is colonially-themed. The name romanticises the destruction of indigenous society.”

The Napoleon Plaza — which is now set for a name change — forms part of the Wynyard Walk.

An artist’s impression of Napoleon Plaza. Picture: City of Sydney

City of Sydney gave “in-principle” approval to the name “Napoleon Plaza” in June following a request from Transport for NSW. The plaza, a major thoroughfare to Barangaroo, opened in September.

The title was suggested because of its proximity to Napoleon St, named by convict Francis Girard, an officer in Bonaparte’s army who built a business empire in Sydney during the 1830s after being pardoned for theft.

Transport Minister Andrew Constance refused to intervene yesterday, despite his department originally suggesting the title.

Napoleon St in 1900 during a cleansing operation. Picture: State Library of NSW

The name is due to be switched to “Girard Plaza” at a City of Sydney meeting next week after Ms Moore bowed to pressure from the tiny number of complaints. It will cost around $6000 to print new signage.

“The proposed naming of the plaza after Francis Girard is considered appropriate as it reflects the colonial and industrial history of the site,” said a City of Sydney spokesman.

Napoleon St will not be renamed.

Award-winning Napoleon historian Professor Philip Dwyer, from the University of Newcastle, was surprised City of Sydney approved the original name, given that even Paris has no streets, buildings or plazas named after Napoleon.

A shed at the corner of Napoleon and Kent streets, circa 1900. Picture: State Library of NSW

He described the backdown in the face of just nine objections as “excessive or weak, depending on your point of view”.

“Whether Napoleon was a dictator or not is entirely open to interpretation; he didn’t have any more power than any other monarch in Europe at the time,” Prof Dwyer added.

There were three submissions supporting retention of “Napoleon Plaza” — including that it was “logical given proximity to Napoleon St”.

Napoleon Plaza near Barangaroo will no longer be named after the French figure

Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore made the decision after receiving just nine complaints.

Some complainants suggested the plaza be named after an indigenous person but City of Sydney’s historian ruled out an Aboriginal language name “due to the lack of direct connections with Aboriginal culture and the urban fabric of the site”.

Labor councillor Linda Scott suggested the plaza be named after Jessie Street, the human rights campaigner.