Moore Stairs
The Moore Stairs, also known as Moore Steps, are a NSW heritage listed public access flight of stairs which connect East Circular Quay with Macquarie Street in Sydney, Australia. Constructed in 1868 of Melbourne bluestone, they were named in honour of the city's mayor Charles Moore, and remain in use.
Need for the stairs
By the 1860s, the difficulty of getting between the Tarpeian Way and the quay had "been the subject of loud complaint" for a number of years. The first design for the stairs, in a drawing by the City Engineer Edward Bell in 1866, shows a single flight of "bottom block Pyrmont stones" rising to a mid-landing where the stairway divides into two and rises in separate flights to Macquarie Street. The space between the flights held a wrought iron lamp frame and gas lamp. All three flights had a Sydney sandstone balustrade of ashlar blocks and topped with a half-round coping. The whole design was to be supported on sandstone arches and in an area 20 feet wide. A building contract was drawn up and signed in March 1867. However, a land ownership claim was raised by the Mr. Talbot, owner of the Talbot Stores buildings on either side. The dispute was resolved in January 1868 with the Government Gazette proclaimed the land as being "...dedicated to the public as a thoroughfare and footway".An alternate design was then drawn up and again signed by Bell, with the material changing to a basalt, known as Melbourne bluestone, which was more hard-wearing than the soft Sydney sandstone. The stairs today are this second design–consisting of a single straight flight with an intermediate landing–although they have undergone several restorations and the width of the space either side has been increased.
Opening
In the presence of the city aldermen and other dignitaries, the public stars were officially opened at half-past twelve on Wednesday, 9 September 1868 by the Mayor Charles Moore,A bottle was thereupon smashed by the Mayor "in the most approved orthodox manner", followed by three cheers for the queen and three for the Mayor. The party then departed to a ceremonial planting of trees in Moore's Park. The events were reported seriously, and satirically, in the local papers. Both the stairs, and the park, are now commonly known as Moore, not Moore