Darling Harbour has lived many lives. To the Gadigal People, it was known as Tumbalong, meaning “a place to find seafood.” Through the 1800s it housed Australia’s first steam engine, first hydraulic power station, and managed most of the nation’s export produce from its wharf. Perhaps its best life, however, was in the 1990s when it was briefly home to Sydney’s very own SEGA World theme park.
Over the 20th century Darling Harbour dwindled from being Australia’s foremost port, to becoming a derelict industrial area of empty warehouses and unused railroads. In response, the NSW Government redeveloped it into a recreational and entertainment precinct. In May 1988, Queen Elizabeth II officially opened the new Darling Harbour.
Filled with restaurants, a world-class Exhibition Centre, and a variety of family attractions, the new Darling Harbour was an exciting place. Sydney City Council even ran television ads with the slogan “Good on you, Darling,” depicting families enjoying the area and proclaiming “Darling Harbour, a great place for me.”
The ads captured the vibrant essence of Darling Harbour at the time. There was something special about a space purely designed for fun family activities that Sydney seems to be missing today. So indulge me, and let me take you through a day in ‘90s Darling Harbour.
We start by hopping on the Sydney monorail at Pitt St to make our way to the Darling Park stop. As The Simpsons would tell you, every first-class city needs a monorail, and by god did Sydney have one! After leaving the station, we’re greeted by the behemoth IMAX Sydney building, opened in 1996 and home to the world’s largest screen and a real IMAX film projector.
Then we make our way over to Harbourside Festival Marketplace, a shopping centre decorated with original public artworks by Australia’s most prominent artists and muralists. We stop at our favourite shops including Australian Geographic, Timezone, and the Arnott’s Mini-Factory that serves up fresh, piping-hot Tiny Teddies to customers.
By now we’re feeling tired, so we take the novelty mini-train all around the key stops of Darling Harbour, including the Sydney Convention Centre, Paddlepop playground, and water play-areas. Next, we cool off with lunch at Xerts — a futuristic spaceship-themed restaurant where you can order food on touch-screen tablets (a decade before iPads existed!). Finally, it’s time to enter SEGA World Sydney.
A fully-immersive indoor theme park, SEGA World was incredibly innovative. Inside were rides like ‘Ghosthunter’, a virtual-reality ride where players shot lasers at the screen while being catapulted in vibrating-moving chairs in a cinema. There were multiple 4D motion rides set underwater or in inter-galactic locations, dodgem cars with ball-cannons, and a merch store overflowing with Sonic The Hedgehog memorabilia. It also included a full arcade with more than one hundred games to play. Opened in 1997, operators hoped the Olympics would cause a bump in revenue, but after four years of underperformance it closed in 2000.
In its most iconic ‘90s-core moment, Darling Harbour was a key filming location for Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie (1995). Outside SEGA World sat the iconic McDonalds, with red sails that served as the film’s fictional hangout location “Ernie’s Juice Bar”. The movie perfectly captured the playful design of ‘90s Darling Harbour, and if you want to see a giant robot-insect lay waste to iconic Sydney landmarks, then Power Rangers is a must-watch (They even destroy part of the monorail!).
If most of the Darling Harbour I described sounded unfamiliar, that’s because it was largely destroyed when the State Government redeveloped it in the 2010s. The old SEGA World site was demolished in 2013 to make way for the new Commonwealth Bank head office, furnished with restaurants and shops, and renamed Darling Quarter. The old Convention and Exhibition Centre was demolished and redeveloped into apartments and restaurants named Darling Square. It was replaced by the International Convention Centre which boasted three separate complexes spread across Darling Drive.
The monorail was removed in 2013, with newly created light-rail stops partially replacing the service. Notably, this era of redevelopment was plagued by delays and criticism. After the old IMAX was torn down in 2016, the Ribbon project saw five long years of delays, and the bankruptcy of two developers. Seven years later, the new IMAX theatre is no-longer the world’s largest, seats 200 people less than the original, and sits as the bookend of the six-star W Hotel.
With the demolition of Harbourside shopping centre this year, Darling Harbour lost its Hard Rock Cafe, bowling alley, arcade, and a whole host of retail stores, cafes and restaurants. The development proposal flags a new residential apartment tower. It seems that any remnants of ‘90s Darling Harbour are quickly fading.
A cynic would say that ‘90s Darling Harbour was filled with sappy family attractions and branded novelties. What’s the value of a SEGA-branded theme park anyway?
Well, I think ‘90s Darling Harbour provided the sort of fun urban spaces for kids and families that the Sydney CBD is lacking today. Architect Phillip Cox, who designed the 1988 Exhibition Centre agrees. He commented in 2016 that old Darling Harbour was “a unique and world relevant urban space” with a “freshness” about it. He laments that current-day Darling Harbour has lost that appeal, instead becoming a place where the “exploitation of the real estate values” has “reduced urban amenity”.
Perhaps it’s for the best. Maybe ‘90s Darling Harbour truly was just a gimmick, a mere prototype of what an entertainment precinct could be. The new Darling Harbour is undoubtedly an infrastructure upgrade. It feels like a fully-formed space fit to host expansive events while providing spaces for people to work, play and live. Even then, part of me would trade all that for just one weekend at SEGA World Sydney. Maybe it’s the nostalgia talking, but ‘90s Darling Harbour had a playful charm that can never be matched by shiny glass skyscrapers.
