Image by Michael Sharman via Flickr
Sydney’s Kings Cross is bar and red-light district made infamous during the two World Wars.
The Kings Cross bars and strip joints did a roaring trade during the World Wars and afterwards during the Korean War and the Vietnam War era. This is when thousands of eager young sailors and other servicemen would be hit ‘The Cross’ on shore leave ‘to paint the town red’, or an the US Navy puts it – ‘On Liberty’.
Australia’s Garden Island naval base is still at Wooloomooloo, at the bottom of the hill. But you won’t see many Aussie sailors these days, our navy is so small. Visitors coming and going are vetted by civilian security guards.
But in these days of smaller navies and fewer visits, Kings Cross survives as a hangout for backpackers, junkies, sad prostitutes and their pimps and a few curious tourists. There are plenty of bars and strip joints to entertain visitors with a need to leer at female flesh, and a desire for cold beer or other beverages.
The result is lots of tanked up young males on the streets looking for a fight or a fling. To give the bar owners and the council their due, they have been trying to improve the situation by bringing in portable street urinals for the drunks on Friday and Saturday nights, while the bar and night club owners are starting to employ security guards to patrol the street in groups looking for troublemakers to pacify.
“The Cross”, as locals call it, is still a desirable place to live for many people who just hop on a train from Kings Cross Station and can commute quickly to work in the city, or even walk.
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