Eternity Cafe

Photograph and article from https://acl.asn.au/resources/eternity/

“There were suggestions that the city should erect a plaque to his memory. One idea was that there should be a statue in Railway Square depicting Stace kneeling, chalk in hand.

In 1968 the Sydney City Council decided to perpetuate Stace’s one-word sermon by putting down permanent plaques in “numerous” locations throughout the city. But a team of City Commissioners stopped the idea. They thought it was too trivial.

For weeks there was angry debate in the Letters to the Editor columns. One reader believed Mary Anne Smith, who gave us the Granny Smith apple, was far more worthy of recognition.

But finally Arthur Stace did get his plaque.

It happened ten years after his death and it was due to Ridley Smith, architect of Sydney Square next to St. Andrew’s Cathedral. He set the message ETERNITY in cast aluminium, set in pebbles, near the Sydney Square waterfall.”

See the memorial at his grave