In October 1944 the main US hospital left for the liberation of the Philippines, although some American patients and staff remained on site until January 1945. In that same month, the Royal Navy opened a hospital to treat wounded members of the British Pacific Fleet in the vacated buildings. It received and treated 9003 patients. The Australian army occupied some of the other sections. One of the sections in use was located in Cullens Road, between Canterbury Road and Wiggs Roads Punchbowl and used up until March 1947.
After the war the military departed, and the hospital barrack buildings of timber and corrugated iron were handed over to the Housing Commission from March 1946 and converted into public housing to relieve housing shortages. Some of the street names recall the American presence such as Pennsylvania Road, Kentucky Road, Wyoming Place, Idaho Place, Michigan Road, Montana Crescent, Roosevelt Avenue and Truman Avenue. Now the Herne Bay Hospital is the headquarters for the Australian Air League Riverwood Squadron. The suburb developed an unsavoury reputation for poverty, overcrowding and violence, and its name was changed to Riverwood in 1957, in large part to remove the stigma associated with living there. This helped to change the reputation of the area. From the 1950s onwards, purpose-built utilitarian public housing apartment blocks and freestanding bungalows replaced most of the former military buildings on the northern side of the railway line, while the southern part of the suburb was mostly privately developed.
Population
In the 2016 Census, there were 12,103 people in Riverwood. 39.7% of people were born in Australia. The next most common countries of birth were China 18.6%, Lebanon 2.9%, Hong Kong 2.8%, Vietnam 2.3% and New Zealand 2.2%. 31.8% of people only spoke English at home. Other languages spoken at home included Mandarin 15.3%, Cantonese 12.5%, Arabic 8.5%, Greek 2.8% and Vietnamese 2.7%. The most common responses for religion were No Religion 28.1%, Catholic 19.9% and Islam 9.4%.
Commercial area
The main shopping centre is located on Belmore Road and Thurlow Streets, near Riverwood railway station. Riverwood Plaza is a small shopping centre on Belmore Road that features Woolworths and ALDI supermarkets, liquor retailer BWS, a post office, specialty shops and a food court. A strip of on-street businesses line Belmore Road on both the northern and southern sides of Riverwood railway station.
Transport
is on the Airport & South Line of the Sydney Trains network, with Padstow to the west and Narwee to the east. Although the buses of Punchbowl Bus Company are stabled at their headquarters on Hannans Road Riverwood, the suburb itself does not act as a bus terminus. For details of bus routes see Riverwood Station The M5 South Western Motorway crosses Belmore Road in Riverwood, offering on- and off-ramps for northeast-bound and southwest-bound traffic.
