The Daily Telegraph picked up the Balmain Leagues Club gallery for an online-and-print feature. This was from the era when the Daily Telegraph, that impartial media outlet renowned for quality journalism and integrity, would still ask to use my photographs rather than simply lifting them off the website without permission or credit.
I never worked out why they needed to re-edit the photographs and then publish them at a lower resolution than I supplied. What's done is done.
Anyone who has seen the exterior of Balmain Leagues Club will not be surprised the interior is in the state it's in. The site is a blight on Sydney's Inner West. It is a festering icon of developer greed gone wrong, and the future of the building remains in limbo. The neighbours have lived with it for years.
"This year marks seven years since the Balmain Leagues Club was sold for $1 in exchange for its buyer inheriting the club's $22 million-plus debt. But a series of shocking photos captured by Sydney photographer Brett Patman shows just how far the once-proud building has fallen into disrepair. Squatters have taken up residence, floors are rotting from water damage and almost every wall has been covered in graffiti."
Read the Daily Telegraph piece at dailytelegraph.com.au.
