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The Dictionary of Sydney
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Kings Cross Theatre, Kings Cross 1939

Kings Cross Theatre, Kings Cross 1939

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National Library of Australia

[PIC Online access #PIC/20234/5/87]

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Breeding delinquents: Surf City 1963-1966

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National Library of Australia

Breeding delinquents: Surf City 1963-1966

The venue Surf City in the former Kings Cross Theatre on Darlinghurst Road was accused of ‘breeding delinquents’ soon after it opened in 1963. Despite its short lifetime, the venue is crucial to the musical history of Australia. For three years it served as the spiritual home of Australian beat music, giving rise to mainstream pop stars and underground cult heroes whose influence remains today.

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Kings Cross

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In the nineteenth century one of Sydney's most prestigious suburbs, it became home to a vibrant bohemian community and later Sydney's red light district. Named for the intersection of Darlinghurst Road, William and Victoria Streets and once called Queens Cross, the area is now a neon lit mecca for tourists and Sydneysiders.

Darlinghurst

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Inner suburb to the east of the city which has been home to both gentry and underclass. The former Darlinghurst Gaol is now the National Art School.

Kings Cross Theatre

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Cinema on the corner of Darlinghurst Road and Victoria Streets at Kings Cross that opened in April 1916. Part of Frank Waddington's chain of picture houses, the cinema seated over 2000 and was described as 'particularly lavish'. A 'junior' nightclub called the Birdcage, run by radio compere Peter Bergin was open briefly in the venue in 1963 after the theatre closed, and soon replaced by John Harrigan's Surf City, that occupied the building from 1963 until 1966 when the building was demolished, to be replaced by the Crest Hotel.

Darlinghurst Road

Once lined by exclusive mansions from the 1830s, the road has seen a transformation from the Bohemian atmosphere of the 1930s and 40s where the cafes and nightclubs attracted writers and artists, to the seedier side of bars and strip clubs which proliferated during wartime to entertain servicemen from nearby Garden Island. Today it is a red light district, tourist mecca and home to the desperate and the affluent.

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Victoria Street Kings Cross

Tree lined street of Victorian era terraces which became the epicentre of the Green Bans movement of the 1970s when developers submitted plans to gut the street and build high rise apartments.

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