Carlos isn’t here anymore. We miss him and we remember him. It’s a terribly sad thing when someone dies. Partly because they have never entirely left us. The larger their lives, the longer they live on through our memories and all they have done for us. Carlos Femenias was one of those giants in the heart. And Addi Road acknowledges his passing as something very significant and important today.
Fragments and tears; big feelings in each silence that falls between the words. Maria Fotiadis has had a long history with Addi Road, going back to the early 1970s when the Greek community began gathering here in Marrickville, bringing to life what would be formally established as the Addison Road Community Centre in 1976. She remembers the other communities that allied with them, the Turkish and Yugoslav and Italian people in particular, the nights they’d organise to sing, play music and dance and celebrate each nation’s unique culture and history…
During World War One, Addi Road was ‘place of enlistment’. Many of the original barracks are still in use today. ‘Ten Ordinary Men – The ANZACs of Addison Road’ tells the stories of ten young men who came here.
50 years on from the Springboks ’71 tour, after the appalling racism that came out this week with England’s loss in the Euro Cup, the shameful treatment of AFL legend Adam Goodes, and debates over our cricket team taking the knee to honour victims of racist violence − we know that sport cannot be divorced from the values and challenges of its time.
Day ends at the Addison Road Community Organisation. Gurwinder starts to take the chairs from the road, leaving only the white crosses that now mark out the social distance needs of our times…
2SER-FM Weekend Breakfast host, Jess Klajman, spoke with our Programs Coordinator, Mina Bui Jones, about ‘Memory and Landscapes’, an Addison Road Community Organisation event happening this Sunday morning, 8th September, 10am-12pm, exploring the hidden and ‘lost’ waterways running beneath Sydney’s Inner West.
