If you know “the Cross,” you know the junction of Darlinghurst Road and Victoria Street — and for nearly fifty years the building that owned that corner was the Kings Cross Theatre. It opened 14 April 1916 on Frank Waddington’s picture-house circuit: a lavish suburban cinema seating about 2,000, with orchestra and (from 1928) a Wurlitzer organ. For half a century it was the landmark entertainment address at the top of William Street / Darlinghurst Road.
The cinema closed in 1963. After a brief nightclub turn (the Birdcage), John Harrigan’s Surf City beat venue occupied the stripped auditorium from 1963 to 1966 — short-lived, but a famous chapter in Australian popular music. The theatre came down in 1966 for the Scandinavian-style Crest Hotel (opened 1967), later partly remodelled; the multipurpose Omnia apartment and retail complex has held the corner since 2016 works. Kings Cross railway station infrastructure also remade the underground and streetscape around it.
Photographs here recall the theatre corner and its hotel-era replacements. The building is gone — caption Crest / Omnia as “on the former theatre site.”
Kings CrossTheatre - At The Junction Of Darlinghurst Road & Victoria Street
What A Wonderful Place This Would’ve Been. Way Before I Was Born. I’ve Stood There And Tried To Visualise How It Would’ve Been. So Sad.
The Kings Cross Theatre sat on the corner of Darlinghurst Rd and Victoria St and opened in 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 was 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.\
The Crest Hotel was a Scandinavian style 14 storey hotel and it had the famous "Goldfish" bar at street level. The building was partially demolished in 2016 and remodelled as the multipurpose apartment building Omnia, which houses 131 apartments, a new commercial offering at ground and first floor, including a supermarket and associated parking within the existing building basement.
