Two and a half kilometres of Victorian shopfronts on King Street, and the Gould's Book Arcade storefront where Erskineville Kings shot in 1999.
What Newtown looks like
King Street runs in an almost unbroken line of two and three storey shopfronts, stucco fronted with decorative parapets and suspended awnings over the footpath. Some sections still have the original trachyte and bluestone kerbing, and pendant string lights hang under some of the awnings from the 1930s. At a former bank building reads ERECTED 1922 across its cornice, with stone columns beside the shopfront below.
sits at the King Street and Enmore Road corner, where the strip splits toward the university end and the Princes Highway. Behind the shopfronts the side streets narrow into terraces, two storeys with cast iron lace balconies and corrugated iron roofs behind their parapets. stands on Australia Street, its pink stucco portico lettered COURT HOUSE over paired columns.
rises above the fig trees at , its sandstone spire visible over the headstones. The old cemetery lodge sits behind a picket fence under the same canopy.
Toward the university end of King Street, the former Trocadero dance hall keeps its oriel window and gabled dormers above the footpath, its rear hall one of the few large volume interiors on the strip. The former Gould's Book Arcade stands empty near that end of the strip, its parapet still lettered BOOKS AND VIDEO above shuttered windows, a newer brick apartment tower rising behind the roofline.
Shot in Newtown
Erskineville Kings used the original Gould's Book Arcade at the north end of King Street for a scene in 1999. Bliss used the Spanish Mission style service station at 422 King Street as a location in 1985, and Candy shot a scene at the Advance Loan Office on King Street in 2006. The video for Coldplay's A Sky Full of Stars was shot along King Street in 2014 and has passed a billion views on YouTube.
Erskineville Kings, 1999
Erskineville Kings used the original Gould's Book Arcade for a scene at 32 King Street, near the university end. The shop has since moved south to 536 King Street, and the old storefront stands empty behind its hand painted parapet. Street View
What Newtown can double for
Brunswick Street, Fitzroy in Melbourne, Victoria
Brunswick Street's two storey stuccoed shopfronts carry high parapets built to hide the roofline, the same trick King Street's builders used. The continuous run of shopfronts from the 1880s and 1890s matches King Street's own scale block for block. Fitzroy's parapets often have richer cast iron cresting than King Street's plainer ones, so a wide shot should favour the plainer blocks away from the busiest corners. Try searching stuccoed parapet shopfronts now.
Cuba Street in Wellington, New Zealand
Cuba Street keeps the most complete run of Victorian and Edwardian commercial buildings left in Wellington, put up between the 1890s and the 1930s in the same continuous shopfront pattern as King Street. Wellington's high rise rebuilding skipped this street, so the run survives block after block. Cuba Street's footpath has more street furniture and pedestrian mall sections than King Street, so a wide shot needs careful framing to avoid the difference. Try searching Victorian shopfront street now.
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