Sydney entrepreneurs were attracted to Pyrmont as it was easily reached by boat, but far enough from the city for noisy or dirty activity. John MacArthur encouraged development, and boat building began here in 1838 and 1840, some years before the peninsula was incorporated into Sydney. Quarrying followed. Saunders’s yellow block sandstone quarries were more famous, but O’Brien’s ballast quarry (providing ballast for sailing ships) had a more immediate effect on the tip of the peninsula, now occupied by Reflections and Cadi Park.

In the 1850s an abattoir opened on Glebe Island. In 1857 a bridge linked the island to Pyrmont, and soon the island hosted a second abattoir. Cattle (and carcasses) moved through Pyrmont in great numbers. Fyfe’s iron foundry added sound and smoke, and so did the City Iron Works. Pyrmont was a busy place even before Edward Knox was squeezed out of Chippendale and picked this as the site for CSR’s operations.

When raw (crystalline) sugar arrived by ship, it had to be stored near the refinery (where Regatta Wharf now stands). The disused ballast quarry was ready-made for that purpose: its rock walls only needed roofing. So ships moored opposite Regatta Wharf and Reflections, men wrestled sacks onto drays, and horses hauled the drays to the Raw Sugar Store where sugar was piled into hillocks. By the 1950s sugar could be loaded loose, and unloaded by a device like a water cannon.