The Block is a colloquial but universally applied name given to a residential block of social housing in the suburb of Redfern, Sydney, bound by Eveleigh, Caroline, Louis and Vine Streets. Beginning in 1973, houses on this block were purchased over a period of 30 years by the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) for use as a project in Aboriginal-managed housing. Location The Block is probably the most famous feature of the suburb of Redfern, although it is located on the western border of that suburb, on the edge of Darlington. The focus of life in the Block has always been Eveleigh Street, which is its eastern border, with railway lines on the other side of that street. The Block is in the immediate vicinity of Redfern station. Aboriginal Housing Company The area was significant as an affordable source of low-cost housing for disadvantaged Aboriginal people. The Block has historically been the subject of large protests, starting in the early 1970s, when landlords in the area conducted a campaign of evicting all Aboriginal residents. A group of campaigners, led by future judge Bob Bellear and his wife Kay, successfully lobbied the Whitlam government for a grant which allowed the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) to commence purchasing houses in 1972. Other people involved in the early days were Bob's brother Sol Bellear; architect Colin James; Lyall Munro Jnr and his wife Jenny Munro; Gary Foley; Paul Coe and his sister Isabel Coe; Billy Craigie (later Isabel's husband); Gary Williams; Naomi Mayers; and many others. In 2017 it was reported that the core founding group comprised eight people, of whom Lyall Munro was the only one still alive. As a pioneering and still unique project in Aboriginal-run housing near the centre of Australia's largest city, it excites enormous emotions, and moreover is viewed by the largely rural Indigenous population of New South Wales as a pied-à-terre and spiritual home in Australia's largest city. In 2004, the Aboriginal Housing Company decided to raze part of The Block that had deteriorated into a slum. 2004 Redfern riot On 14 February 2004, The Block was the scene of 2004 Redfern riots following the death of an Aboriginal boy, TJ Hickey. Hickey died after, while on his bicycle, he collided with a protruding gutter, was flung into the air and was impaled on a fence outside a block of units off Phillip Street, Waterloo, as he was