The 21st July 2015 marks 106 years since the first annual meeting of the Macdonaldtown Bicycle Club. Towards the bottom of page 16 of the Sydney Morning Herald of Saturday 24th July 1909 a small notice appeared announcing the opening run of the club to Long Bay:
Sydney Morning Herald – 24 July 1909
The Macdonaldtown Bicycle Club is pushing off and trundling the streets of Erskineville again in search of old maps, its old houses and terraces and various past happenings. Known variously as Bulanaming, Burrin Farm, Devine’s Estate Newtown, Macdonald Town – Macdonaldtown, Erskineville, and more recently in a triumph of marketing as SoNo (South Of Newtown), the landscape has changed immensely. From a ‘purlieu of filth,’ and ‘the streets, both as to narrowness, works of construction therein, and architecture are such as should not be tolerated in a civilised community’ to ‘where the hip and funky live,’ Erskineville has seen some changes.