Did you see the bright lights in Potts Point and Kings Cross over the past few months?

It was the tail end of a sustainable lighting trial by the council – they swapped 200 street lights to LEDs in Circular Quay, Martin Place, Alexandria Park, and on Darlinghurst Road between Bayswater Road and Macleay Street, plus another 50 street lights at Bourke Street, Surry Hills, with Energy Australia.

Energy savings of 30-40 per cent have been touted, which is a big deal considering the council reports spending a third of its electricity on street/public lighting. No results yet, but the council plans to install the energy efficient lights in all 8500 of its street and public domain lights over the next three years.

We’ve never had a short supply of loaves in the neighbourhood, but we finally have the fishes too!

As I was paying for my F and V at Harris Farm, I noticed a fishy smell.

Not that I was put off by it. On the contrary.

I was, however annoyed that I had already bought some prawns for dinner from somewhere I don’t even want to mention.

Nevermind, seafood could well be a more regular feature on the menu at Chateau Darlinghurst Nights.

We were lucky not to walk right into this fence at the corner of Macleay and Manning Streets, Potts Point.

Fortunately, RTA workers erected two signs directing pedestrians around the two metre high fences – “PEDESTRIAN” and “DETOUR”. Guys, I know stating the obvious is getting to be a fine art, but this taking it too far, right?

It’s Llankelly Place, in the heart of Kings Cross, and it’s about to seriously change.

Running between Darlinghurst Road and Orwell Street, Llankelly Place doesn’t yell hip inner city life. More cheap commercial real estate. It’s the sort of place where someone’s peeled back the security grill on a window, then the metal below, and then punched through the window – and the proprietors have just left it that way.

Jo Holder’s Cross Arts has opened a new project space on the place. The franchise-ready hot-dog/sausage emporium on the corner of Llankelly Place and Darlinghurst Road is gone, replaced by gelato shop (Stella) that seems to already be up for lease (with all equipment for sale). Down the other end is the Doma beer cafe.

Halfway down the place is a huge new $60m Frank Stanisic designed development, the Village Centre. It opens late January, 2010, though it’s tucked behind security fences for the moment. With a Harris Farm market and 16 other retailers, including the one providore missing in the neighbourhood, a fishmonger, it’s a potential catalyst for the place.

It’s the highest density urban neighbourhood in the country, and it’s loaded with a mixed residential, entertainment and increasingly business focus, so balancing competing demands must be challenging. But does the council even have the resources to support this kind of growth?

Llankelly Place features a series of striking light installations, designed by Peter McGregor (below pic taken from MW Architects‘s website) – the light screens shift slowly from red on Darlinghurst Road to green at the Springfield Gardens. But since installation, the light bulbs have rarely been replaced.

I know it’s probably quite, ahem, noughties to talk about laneway culture – and in Australia, it suggests a bit of a defensive Melbourne-Sydney thing. But really, laneway culture is part of high density city life, and that fine resolution street life is really missing in Sydney.

It’s the silly season in Darlinghurst, but that’s no reason to just throw your shoes off in the street.

That stylish kicker was on Macleay Street, outside the Potts Point Fratelli Fresh. But it’s by no means the only pair in town. Cast off shoes are reaching epidemic proportions.

There’s another pair just around the corner on Llankelly Place. Just over to the left there, it’s a pair of suede heels.

A fancy night out gone wrong (or right?) – it could have been a Take It Home And See If It Works, but this has the feel of something much bigger.

The Christmas tree in Fitzroy Gardens has borne fruit, well parsley.

It’s just common parsley – not the good Continental stuff – but when you’re short and the shops have closed, it’ll do at a pinch.

It reminds me of those weird planters the council put up at the intersection of Victoria and William Streets and Darlinghurst Road – they had strawberries, although none seemed to make it to fruiting. Still, I’m really into the concept of council decorations that are useful for the locals.

Snapped by a reader, Kerri, on her way to work this very morning was this latest instalment.

Ever heard of “The Snicket?”

Well I hadn’t, but colloquially, it is the name for the pedestrian pathway that leads down to Billyard Avenue from Macleay Street, and this is where the X-Ray Specs were found.

Thanks Kerri.

It’s been a busy week for the guerrilla knitters in Kings Cross.

Three days ago, we caught their yarn going up in Fitzroy Gardens, but they’ve been working around the clock with a crane and a giant ladder, and the results are spectacular.

I love the idea of public art, but all too often the stark modernist blocks and balls in our public squares seem more alienating than intriguing. They stand so defiantly, inscrutable.

I Heart Kings Cross is something quite different. Warm, friendly – probably a bit smelly after all the rain – each piece of crochet and cross-stitch is so obviously made by someone.

It’s glorious and wonderful.

A pair of eyes are ogling across at a bikini-clad pole (that’s at the pedestrian crossing where Darlinghurst Road becomes Macleay Street), and, as if to underscore the knitters’ take on public art, they’ve wrapped one of the discs in Dennis Wolanski’s Angled Wheels of Fortune in a relaxed, loose weave – “Chill out, ’80s sculptor.”

The police station has been drafted, too, and the entire spectacle now stretches a little further down Macleay Street and up Darlinghurst Road, though the focus remains on Fitzroy Gardens.

This is one of the most unexpectedly glorious things I’ve seen in ages. Walk by, if you can.

The cafe at No. 9 Ward Avenue, Potts Point, has closed in mysterious circumstances.

Jess noticed it yesterday (her pic’s on the left), though the details are obscured behind the door. By the time we went by today, under a dusty orange sky, even those had been folded away.

Our post about No. 9 was the busiest and most commented since we started Darlinghurst Nights almost a year ago. It opened in July and seems to have burned bright, but fast.

UPDATE (25/9/09): There’s a new sign in the window at No. 9 (first noticed by Lisa in the comments below), that says the cafe is just closed for renovations.

The latest issue of Delicious magazine (October 09) says No. 9 breaks the Sydney cafe mould. It quotes Lane Finlayson (operator of the cafe, formerly of Bills, Darlinghurst).

We didn’t want it to have that ‘Sydney look’ of clean lines and white walls. We wanted something a little more European. It could be a very small corner of a grand country house.

The article says a liquor licence is in the works, with plans to open for dinner, which could explain the temporary closure – though with a great review in Delicious, they must be disappointed to be shut for business.

I’m terribly sorry, but a recent post would suggest that this is just asking for trouble.

Count them. 11 drums of vegetable oil.

And where was such a scene sighted?

On Macleay Street, only metres from the location of the “new” vomit.