Cricketers Arm Hotel

Before the monkeys moved into the Monkey Bar the hotel on the corner of Ford & Darling Street was know as the Cricketers Arms Hotel. It was a working mans pub and late in the afternoon the male employees from the wharfs, Balmain hospital and various local tradesmen would meet at the bar to drink. Often they would spill out onto the pavement in a noisy commotion of foul language and ribald comments made to passing pedestrians. Drinking and smoking it made for a rough and tumble environment after 6pm most evenings and young women and schoolgirls would choose to cross the street instead of passing its doors. Of cause this all changed when the high heels, smokey glass windows, Armani suits, polished floorboards and sliding glass doors moved in when the pub changed its name to the Monkey bar.