The New Yorker apartment block at 9 Ward Avenue Elizabeth Bay were built c 1938 and hints at the American Art deco influence on our local architecture.

The brickwork design adds to the character of the design with its emphasis on verticality, cantilevered central section and brick highlights in a darker colour bricks under some of the window sills.

Today, the ground floor is a retail cafe with al fresco umbrellas, tables and chairs.

The architect was George Newton Kenworthy FRAIA, (1885-1954) who, coincidentally was responsible for numbers two and three Ward Avenue nearby.

He was a notable designer responsible for many theatres and buildings in the Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, Functionalist and Mediterranean styles.

He was born and UK educated in the UK at the

University of Liverpool School of Architecture. He qualified as an architect in 1906.

In 1911 Kenworthy moved to Sydney, Australia, taking up a position in the New South Wales Government Architect‘s Office, where he remained until 1923, having risen to be Architect-in-Chief, Secretary’s Department in their Theatres and Public Halls Section.

From 1914 to 1922 he was also a part-time lecturer in Architecture at the Sydney Technical College and an examiner for the Board of Architects and the Sydney Technical College.

In 1923, Kenworthy left the NSW Public Service and became a partner in the firm of Henry  White, where he worked on many significant projects in New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and New Zealand, including fourteen theatres such as the State Theatre, Sydney, Newcastle Civic Theatre, St. James Theatre, Auckland, Hengrove Hall, Macquarie Street, Chalfont Chambers, Phillip Street, St Kilda’s Palais Theatre and the Melbourne Athenaeum. He left White’s firm in 1929 to start his own practice at 105 Pitt Street, Sydney, where he stayed until his death, working all manner of works though theatres were most prominent as “a recognised authority on the design and construction of theatres and auditoria generally”, including the Cremorne Orpheum, Mudgee Regent, Hurstville Savoy, Bankstown Regent and the Port Macquarie Ritz.

At a speech to the Institute of Architects at Science House in 1933, Kenworthy observed that the modern theatre building “should be designed for both stage plays and talking pictures, and entrances and foyers should be spacious, and not cluttered with soda fountains and confectionery counters.”

On his death at his Lindfield residence at age 69 in 1954, he was described as “a man of brilliant brain and kind heart … He deeply loved Australia and never returned to England, not even for a holiday.” He has left his indelible mark on the skyline of Sydney.

By Andrew Woodhouse

Heritage Solutions