Bondi
Beach is popular with tourists"Bondi"
or "Boondi" is an aboriginal
word meaning "water breaking over
rocks" or "noise of water breaking
over rocks." The Australian Museum
records that Bondi means "place where
a flight of nullas took place." In
1851, Edward Smith Hall and Francis O'Brien
purchased 200 acres of the Bondi area
that embraced almost the whole frontage
of Bondi Beach, and it was named the "The
Bondi Estate." Hall was O'Brien's
father-in-law. Between 1855 and 1877 O'Brien
purchased his father-in-law's share of
the land, renamed the land the "O'Brien
Estate," and made the beach and the
surrounding land available to the public
as a picnic ground and amusement resort.
As the beach became increasingly popular,
O'Brien threatened to stop public beach
access. However, the Municipal Council
believed that the Government needed to
intervene to make the beach a public reserve.
It was not until June 9, 1882, that the
Government acted and Bondi Beach finally
became a public beach.
Bondi
Beach was a working class suburb throughout
most of the twentieth century. Bondi Beach
and the Eastern Suburbs also became home
for many mainly Jewish migrants as people
fled war and the Holocaust from Poland,
Russia, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Germany.
This characteristic can be noted by the
synagogues, kosher butchers and the Hakoah
Club, one of the Sydney Jewish Community's
most important establishments, a steady
stream of Jewish immigration continues
into the 21st century mainly from South
Africa, Russia and Israel. During the
1970s and 80s, it was renowned for its
immigrant New Zealander population. The
Bondi Astra hotel, now an apartment complex,
was notorious as a place to buy illegal
late-night liquor and heroin. A major
factor in Bondi's seedy image was the
fact that Sydney's Water Board maintained
an untreated sewage outlet not far from
the north end of the beach, resulting
in the term 'Bondi Cigar' - a somewhat
exaggerated reference to human faeces
floating in on the tide.
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