Looking for suburban bliss? You won’t find it here … mercifully

Kenneth Slessor poetised about it, Paul Kelly sang about it. Darlinghurst, where the sunlit open space and tranquillity of Australia meets its antithesis. One of the oldest suburbs we have has, for most of its history, symbolised an inner-city chic. The poems of Slessor and drawings of Virgil Reilly depicted it as a sexy place – the Manhattan of Sydney – with apartments, glamour, crime and urbanity.

The name Darlinghurst was given to the ridge, previously referred to as Woolloomooloo Hill, or sometimes Eastern Hill, in the late 1820s by NSW governor Ralph Darling, thought to be in honour of his wife, Eliza. The area had a colourful history long before Slessor’s odes. Its gaol, Sydney’s oldest and now repurposed as the National Art School, housed many interesting inmates, including writer Henry Lawson (for drunkenness and non-payment of alimony) and bushranger Captain Moonlite.

Like moths to a flame, Sydneysiders have for generations since been drawn to its charismatic charms. The sleaze, the darkness, the fun and the excitement. I spent nearly two decades of my life in this wonderful place. As a child, I lived in Punchbowl, which was semi-rural by comparison. I watched our locale evolve from a horse paddock into a textured brick veneer cul-de-sac as hilariously depicted in They’re a Weird Mob. Darlo was New York by contrast. On any given day, there were more people on Oxford Street at 2am than 2pm. Not a Victa mower to be heard.

Darlinghurst life was, and I feel still is, a rite of passage for Sydneysiders. These days I reside in a “leafy” suburb where the joy of existence is punctuated by new releases on Netflix. I occasionally walk the streets of my past love to ogle at her young faces and breathe her musky night air.

Australia grew up during my time in Darlo. Here is where I first smelt garlic wafting from a restaurant kitchen. Has caffeine ever had so much impact on urban design? Eating and drinking coffee outside used to be illegal. An al fresco revolution began on the streets of Darlinghurst, where plastic stools started appearing on footpaths, forcing the hand of council regulation. Tropfest, the world’s biggest short film festival began at the Tropicana Caffe, now on Victoria Road. Oxford Street championed diversity with the Mardi Gras parade, and Darlinghurst quite possibly had the best nightlife in the world.

Iconic British culture magazine The Face once heralded that in the ’60s it was London, in the ‘70s New York, but the ’80s belonged to Sydney. Those of us who remember Arthur’s, the Cauldron, Rogues, Kinselas, Site, Hip Hop Club, the A