Брунсвик: История и современность пригорода Мельбурна

Brunswick is an inner city suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, north of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Merri bek local government area. Brunswick recorded a population of 24,896 at the 2021 census. In 1859, Wilkinson established the area's first newspaper, The Brunswick Record, which changed its name in 1858 to The Brunswick & Pentridge Press. By 1857, the local population was estimated at 5000. The Brunswick Municipal Council was established in that year at the Cornish Arms Hotel, which still stands. The first municipal chambers were established in 1859 on Sydney Road at Lobb's Hill, between Stewart and Albion Streets. The present Brunswick Town Hall is an imposing Victorian edifice built in 1876 on the corner of Dawson Street and Sydney Road, near the centre of Brunswick. In the 1850s, quarries and a large brickworks established in Brunswick, using the local clay and bluestone, quickly became the largest industry in the area. In 1884 the first Brunswick railway line opened, running from North Melbourne to Brunswick and Coburg. The line ran directly into the Hoffmans Brickworks, reflecting the importance of the brick making industry to the local community. Prior to World War I, Brunswick was the "brickyard capital of Victoria". Remnants of the brickyards are still visible in some parts of Brunswick but most of the yards have long been converted to residential housing or parks. A few years later – in 1887 – a cable tram line was laid along Sydney Road.

In 1908, Brunswick officially became a city. Textiles became a large industry in the area in the early decades of the 20th century, while quarrying declined with the depletion of reserves. In the latter half of the 1920s, thousands of Brunswick residents worked in the textile and rope manufacturing industries. By 1930, there were 300 factories in Brunswick employing over 6,000 workers. On 19 May 1933, two incidents occurred on Sydney Road. Large numbers of police officers were in the area to prevent expected street meetings and, when Reginald Patullo was spotted addressing a crowd from the roof of a tram, the police gave chase. However, as well as the "mainstream" left, Brunswick and nearby suburbs have for many years been a holdout of other left wing parties, radical socialists, and anarchists. In 2018 the Victorian state electoral district of Brunswick elected a Greens member, Tim Read, for the first time. He was re elected in 2022 with an increased margin of 13.5%, making Brunswick a safe seat for the Greens. Brunswick falls into the local City of Merri bek's South Ward; at the 2020 election, the South Ward elected two Greens (James Conlan and Mark Riley) and one Labor councillor (Lambros Tapinos). James Conlan would later leave the Greens in February 2023. The Brunswick Progress Association, formed in 1905, has had an active role in representing residents, particularly on local issues to Merri bek Council, but also at the state and federal levels.

In the 1980s, Brunswick's major nightspot was the Bombay Rock, a notoriously dangerous venue that saw considerable violence between ethnic groups. It was featured in the 1991 movie Death In Brunswick and destroyed by a fire in the mid 1990s. The Sarah Sands Hotel has hosted tours from a number of local and international acts, mostly punk, skinhead, goth or alternative in nature. By 2017, it was again for sale. Brunswick was the location of the "Brunswick Massive" art collective, which was run by local youths involved in Australian Hip Hop and Electronic Music events. The Sydney Road Street Party, held annually in late February, is a major event in the suburb, during which a large proportion of Sydney Road is closed to all traffic. The festival is a prelude to the Brunswick Music Festival, held in March, featuring blues, roots, and world music.

Brunswick has two soccer clubs, Brunswick Juventus and Brunswick City, but Moreland United, Moreland City and Essendon Royals also have strong links to the suburb. There are two cricket clubs,(Brunswick Cricket Club, and Royal Park). The Brunswick Cricket Club, located at Gillon Oval, has a long history dating back to the 1860s and for the last 80 years has been part of the Victorian Sub District Cricket Association. There is a tennis club (West Brunswick, which is actually located at Raeburn Reserve) and three Australian Rules football clubs. The main sites for sporting activity in Brunswick are focused around Clifton and Gilpin Park and the Gillon Oval, though there are many other ovals and pitches around the suburb. A hockey ground is located at Brunswick Secondary College. The hockey ground is owned by Brunswick Hockey Club. The Brunswick Velodrome is in Brunswick East. Brunswick Athletic Club has been operating since 1953, competes in the North West Region of Athletics Victoria and has produced athletes who have represented Victoria and Australia. West Brunswick Football Club, North Old Boys Football Club and North Brunswick compete in the VAFA. Brunswick Netball Club is for all ages. The Brunswick Junior Football Club is based at Gillion Oval, West Brunswick. The North Brunswick Junior Football Club is based at Allard Park, East Brunswick. Both of these teams play in the Yarra Junior Football League. The Brunswick Netball Club is also based at Gillion Oval. The Brunswick Bowling Club is located in East Brunswick at 104 106 Victoria Street. The Brunswick Trugo Club is in Temple Park, at 29 Hodgson Street.

Among the most notable, popular and long standing of Brunswick's community facilities is the Brunswick City Baths in Dawson Street, opening in 1914. After protracted and expensive renovations from 2012, it reopened in 2014 with remodelled change rooms, indoor and outdoor heated pools and children's indoor play pool, fitness program rooms, steam room and sauna, spa and gymnasium. It is owned by Merri bek Council and managed by the YMCA. The Counihan Gallery is in the Brunswick Town Hall building which also housed the Brunswick Library, part of Merri bek City Libraries, during the library's renovation in 2013–14. Certain municipal administrative functions still operate from the Brunswick Town Hall, while the former council offices are now used by community organisations. While several of Brunswick's schools were sold off by the Kennett Government in the 1990s for private housing, the former Brunswick Secondary College building on Victoria Street was saved and has found a new use as the Brunswick Business Incubator, run by the economic development unit of Merri bek Council. Brunswick has a large number of social service agencies, from large Commonwealth corporate providers such as Centrelink, local government services and community based organisations. Among the most notable are the two services for asylum seekers and refugees, the Asylum Seeker Welcome Centre and Foundation House.

The first state run kindergarten opened in Brunswick in 1907 by Emmeline Pye who worked at the Central Brunswick Training School. Brunswick North Primary School in Albion Street is the only government primary school within the boundaries of Brunswick, residents of the suburb have access to four additional primary schools in the vicinity: Brunswick South Primary School, Brunswick East PS (in Brunswick East), Brunswick South West PS and Brunswick North West PS, as well as two Catholic primary schools. There are two government secondary schools (Brunswick Secondary College and the Sydney Road Community School), a Catholic secondary school and a Maronite Catholic college. There is a campus of RMIT University focusing on Textiles and Printing in Dawson Street. Brunswick East High School, which had been located on Albert Street, was closed permanently due to low student enrolments in 1992 and demolished and replaced by Rendazzo Park and townhouses. It had initially opened as Brunswick Domestic Arts School for Girls in the 1920s.

The main areas of open space in Brunswick are on its western edge, comprising several recreational areas that almost combine into a single space: the Alex Gillon Oval, Raeburn Reserve, Brunswick Park, Clifton Park and Gilpin Park. These areas are separated by Victoria and Albert Street. The remaining open spaces within Brunswick are small to tiny 'pocket parks' and reserves. The most notable are Temple Park, Warr Park and Randazzo Park, the latter having won awards for its contemporary landscape design. The southern edge of Brunswick faces directly onto Royal Park and Princes Park, which are large areas of regionally significant open space in the suburbs of Parkville and Carlton North. Though not actually within Brunswick, there is good access to the Merri and Moonee Ponds Creeks, which are linear open spaces with bike paths along them, in Brunswick East and Brunswick West respectively.

The area is among the best served by public transport in Melbourne.

Brunswick itself is relatively flat and is ideal for cycling. Brunswick East is bounded by the Merri Creek Trail, and Brunswick West by the Moonee Ponds Creek Trail, though neither of these can be described as flat. The Upfield Bike Path follows the Upfield railway line from Fawkner, through Coburg and Brunswick, joining the Capital City Trail at Park Street. Streets in Brunswick vary, from too narrow for two cars to pass, to reasonably wide. Not all of the wider streets have cycle lanes, though even riding in lanes in the narrower street often means riding close to parked cars, presenting a significant hazard to cyclists from opening car doors.

Three railway stations service Brunswick: Jewell, Brunswick and Anstey stations, all located on the Upfield line.

The most prominent structures in Brunswick are the heritage listed chimneys of Hoffmann's brickworks on Dawson Street. At their base, one of the brick kilns has been preserved, though the remainder of this site has been redeveloped as medium density attached housing and low rise apartment blocks. Other landmark buildings are the many churches along Sydney Road like Brunswick Baptist Church, the Brunswick Tram Depot, and the large bluestone warehouses in Colebrook Street. Of the newer structures, the four new buildings at the RMIT University campus on Dawson Street are of notable contemporary character, each having its own unique architectural style, with two buildings by noted Melbourne architect John Wardle. The Brunswick Community Health Centre, on Glenlyon Road, completed in the late 1980s, presents a collection of eclectic, differently coloured forms juxtaposed on a small site. It was designed by Melbourne architecture firm Ashton Raggatt McDougall, who have since become internationally prominent. Being one of Melbourne's oldest suburbs, Brunswick has a large number of places of heritage significance, in the form of individual buildings as well as urban conservation precincts covering entire streets or substantial parts of them.