Queens Cross: Potts Point strip renamed for Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras 2020
Kings Cross has gone back to the future with a temporary new name designed to attract the ‘pink dollar’ to Potts Point during Sydney’s famous pride festival this year.
Central Sydney
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Potts Point businesses are going back to the future this month in a bid to attract the “pink dollar” to the precinct throughout this year’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras celebrations.
Kings Cross been renamed ‘Queens Cross’, in a joint initiative by Wayside Chapel and the Potts Point Partnership, in the lead up to Sydney’s world famous pride festival as it welcomes a swell of local and international tourists who choose to stay in the area.
Not only is the title a colourful play on the former red light district’s current name, it harks back to the site’s original name bestowed upon it in 1897 in honour of Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee.
More than 40 businesses are getting into the rainbow spirit, hoping ‘Queens Cross’ can become the meeting point for many of the thousands of Mardi Gras revellers.
“There’s so many people who stay in Potts Point but as an area it has missed out on the ‘pink dollar’,” Hamilton Kings, owner of Honkas Bar and Eats, said.
“They all move on to restaurants and bars in Oxford St and Surry Hills. We thought, let’s be the pre-party or the come down place. There’s so many great restaurants and cafes here now.
“It’s just saying that Potts Point is part of Mardi Gras.”
Silly Tart Kitchen owner Nina Purton said economic pains were still being felt in the wake of the lockout laws, which decimated Kings Cross businesses, but the project was creating a positive story.
“All businesses are still fighting the perception around Kings Cross,” she said.
“We are looking to switch that around and get people talking about a great, fun vibe here.
“Mardi Gras used to march up William St in the 1970s – that’s something that has been forgotten.”
The iconic Kings Cross Hotel has temporarily renamed Queens Cross Hotel for the past few years but this the first time the idea has been rolled out on such a large scale.
Participating shops will fly the rainbow flag and Queens Cross banners until March 1.
Wayside pastor and chief executive said the decision to sponsor the event was a continuation of the “legacy of love and acceptance” the organisation was known for.
“As we embrace all that’s great about our community together, during Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras we can celebrate all that we have achieved and remember those who sacrificed much for us,” he said.
Partnership executive chair Carrington Brigham said the project would create a “colourful and fabulous-filled atmosphere” throughout Mardi Gras.
“Tourists and locals can start their night out in Queens Cross during the Mardi Gras festival with wine bars, fine dining and entertaining drag shows and camp theatre performances all right here in Queens Cross and Potts Point,” he said,