The Museum of Sydney, unlike the other two I’d visited, is in its own, modern building. As is fitting for a city museum, it’s not especially large, but pleasant to walk through. One video exhibit in one small room dealt with daring Sydney Graffiti artists who specialized in painting slogans on dangerous, inaccessible spaces. In 2003 they’d painted “No War” in red paint on the peak of the Sydney Opera House, up where I’d seen those men creeping about (and some people say peace activists are cowards.)

Another, larger exhibit on the top floor was about Sydney  during the Second World war. Lots of fascinating audio on earphones — the King and the Prime Minister announcing war, a funny song about a makeshift bomb shelter. And there was an explanation for one of the inscriptions I’d seen on the pavement along Darlinghurst Road. A good many American servicemen had been stationed in Sydney, and many Sydney residents got their first real taste of jazz at a club for American servicemen in King’s Cross on Darlinghurst. According to the museum literature, our boys had, among Australian women, the reputation for being well heeled, good-looking and courteous (That last is the first time I have ever heard such a claim about Americans.) This led to a good bit of friction between American and Australian troops, who complained that Yanks were, “Overpaid, oversexed, and over here.”

My favorite exhibit was an audio visual installation in which the viewer could choose one of ten characters from Sydney’s history (played by actors of course) and have them interact with one of the other characters. An aborigine woman in the late 18th century, a dissolute, slightly drunk young British clerk, an upper class19th century Englishwoman, an Irish servant. If I could, I would have stayed there and tried out every combination, but that would probably have kept me there until the museum closed.

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