Sydney Harbour Bridge

This is one of the most iconic structures in the world, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It took a long time to complete a bridge between the CBD and North Sydney. As early as 1815 Francis Greenway proposed a across the harbour and a royal commission in 1890 led to the construction of a series of bridges to help relieve the heavy level of ferry traffic on the harbour. These bridges may have helped for a while but by the turn of the 20th Century proposals for a new bridge were requested. It took eleven years for a formal proposal to be accepted and another year before John Bradfield was appointed as the Chief Engineer of the bridge project. Bradfield completed a design for the bridge in 1916 but mainly due to the effects of the First World War the plans were shelved until 1922.

The construction period started in 1923 with the demolition of 800 homes and proceeded for almost a decade before the Sydney Harbour Bridge was opened on 19 March 1932, first, unofficially by Captain Francis de Groot, a member of the New Guard, a right-wing paramilitary group and then shortly afterwards, officially, by Jack Lang, the Premier of New South Wales.

Today, the bridge is a major tourist attraction and the centrepoint of Sydney's New Year's Eve fireworks display. You can even climb to the top.

Reference:
SydneyHarbourBridge.com.au