Kings Cross, along with its adjoining locales of Potts Point and Elizabeth Bay, has a rich and risque history.

Once the domain of grand houses and stylish apartments, “The Cross” eventually became the city’s red light district and an entertainment zone that never sleeps.

But along with sailors, soldiers, tourists and suburbanites out for a night on the town, it has also been home to Sydney’s Bohemia, the haunt of artists, actors, writers and musicians. It continues to attract anyone hoping to find what the painter Donald Friend described in the 1940s as the “genuine Berlin air” of the Cross, where “Everybody is wicked”.