NAKED CITY: THE KINGS CROSS ‘FRINGE’ FESTIVAL

Here at the Naked City we welcomed the recent Kings Cross Festival which went a long way to dispelling the image of the Cross as a cesspool of late night boozing, brawling and warring bikie gangs. However there is another side to KC, which falls very much outside the popular concept of community, but is not without its own cultural and sociological significance.

Call it the darker side of the Cross if you like, but a periphery nevertheless worthy of its own celebration albeit in a slightly perverse and twisted way. Nobody would deny that almost all of the old cosmopolitan style village has been lost – only the Piccolo Bar in Roslyn Street stands as the last bastion of bohemian culture between Potts Point and the Coke sign. However a festering underbelly still survives, one that has almost nothing to do with Channel Nine’s comic book franchise, but still defines very much the nature of the strip. With that in mind we would like to suggest a ‘Kings Cross Fringe Festival’, one that would precede the annual broader celebration, but would focus its attention on the less salubrious side of the Golden Mile.

For starters – how about an open day at the Darlinghurst Rd Injecting Room, one that would lift the veil behind the bleak grey exterior that conceals a clinical version of the old shooting gallery (minus the ducks). We are all for the demystifying of intravenous drug use and provided there was no objection from the regulars the room could bung on a sausage sizzle, a jumping castle, free balloons and even face painting for the kids. And directly across the road, at the entrance to Kings Cross station, the daily scenario of drug dealing and feral bickering could be turned into a kind of Edinburgh style street theatre, with even a cameo appearance from the local undercover constabulary.

We seem to remember that earlier versions of the actual Kings Cross Festival featured a waiters race down Darlinghurst Road, in which waiters from local restaurants competed whilst balancing a plate full of food. The Fringe Fest version would be more canine than culinary as sniffer dogs chased hapless teenagers from Kings Cross Station all the way to the El Alamein Fountain – with the pooch sniffing out the biggest stash of Ecstasy bagging  a year’s supply of Pal.

Musically we would love to see buskers once again given carte blanche on the mean streets of the Cross, despite any Sydney Council objection to have them removed or silenced after a certain hour. Foremost amongst these footpath entertainers, the man with the singing moose, who regularly delights party goers in Bayswater Road, should be elevated to icon status – given his own stage on the corner and with all curfews abolished, allowed to belt out his colourful tunes until the wee small hours.

Finally to cap off the initial KC Fringe Festival we would love to see the few remaining strip clubs, not already converted to backpacker accommodation, succumb to the inevitable and run a competition to see how many bunk beds they could pack in for the day. Both strip club devotees and backpackers alike would be encouraged to rent a bunk for the hour and enjoy the usual cavalcade of pole dancing lovelies – a marvellous coming together of sex and low budget tourism.