| Historical notes: | Statement of Country:
Erskineville is on the traditional lands of the Gadigal (Cadigal), which stretch from the southern shores of Sydney Harbour to today's Petersham (Barani 2013). In 1788, clans of 30 to 50 people, with their own, practices, diets, dress and dialects, lived within their own territories, occasionally converging with other clans to trade, hunt, feast, arrange marriages, resolve disputes and share information. Erskineville and surrounds were ancient windblown sand dunes covered in Banksia scrub mingled with freshwater soaks and wetlands, providing a range of resources used by the Gadigal in their daily lives. (Eveleigh Stories, NSW Government, 2020).
Despite the impacts of colonisation, Aboriginal people express an ongoing connection to Gadigal Country. This connection to Country is recognised and respects are paid to elders past and present.
Early land grants:
The Imperial Hotel is built on part of 120 acres granted to Nicholas Devine in 1794. During the 1830s the grant was subdivided for villa estates and, following the completion of the railway in the 1870s, was subdivided again for residential blocks. The section on Erskineville Road near Union Street was purchased by Samuel Joseph Toogood, Thomas Wilton Eady and John Booth Jones who subdivided it further as the Toogood Estate (Dunn 2023).
In 1880 Lot 1 Section 1 of the Toogood Estate was purchased by George Mercer, a bricklayer of Newtown. The following year the lot was purchased by George Henry Wright, a licensed victualler whose address was Erskineville Road. It is unclear if Mercer or Wright built the first buildings on the site that appear in the Rates Book for 1881. In September 1881, Wright transferred the license of the Newtown Hotel to his new Imperial Hotel on Erskineville Road. The hotel is first listed in the Sands Sydney and Suburban Directory for 1882 and appears as the 'Imperial Hotel'. A block plan of the 1890s shows the site well developed with a large building to the front and a yard and outbuildings to the rear. There also appears to be an adjoining terrace, with a dense pattern of houses in the surrounding neighbourhood (Dunn 2023).
George Wright died in 1901 but the hotel remained in the Wright family till 1924 when it was sold to Ralph Henry Hendra. The hotel was purchased by Tooth and Co. in 1931 and leased to a succession of publicans (Dunn 2023)
Tooth and Company:
Tooth and Company Limited was established as a public company in 1888, however the company's origins date back to 1835, when John Tooth and Charles Newnham established the brewery on the present site of the Kent Brewery at Broadway. The company acquired many existing breweries and hotels across NSW from the late 1880s until the turn of the century. In the late 1930s Tooth and Co were renovating, remodelling and updating many of the hotels under their ownership or control. Using either in-house architects or well-established metropolitan firms, the brewery undertook an enormous, statewide facelift of their hotel properties. Tooth and Company was acquired by Carlton and United Breweries in 1983.
Imperial Hotel:
The Imperial Hotel was one of the hotels rebuilt by Tooth and Co in the late 1930s to the design of the architect Virgilio D. Cizzio (1890-1963). Cizzio, who later changed his name to V.D. Renshaw, was a Sydney based architect who was responsible for numerous homes, offices and factories throughout the city. He designed a number of hotels including the Great Southern Hotel on George Street in the same year as the Imperial, and had previously redesigned the Royal Exchange at Parramatta (1933), the Australian Hotel, Kent Street Sydney (1934), the Hotel Morris, Pitt Street Sydney (1938) and the Commercial Hotel Aberdeen (1939). The new Imperial Hotel extended across the whole of the site and resulted in the demolition of all previous structures (Dunn, 2023). Since its completion in 1940 the interior bars and spaces have undergone a series of renovations and refits, including the rearrangement of internal spaces throughout. The exterior retains the original features and finishes of Cizzio's design (Dunn, 2023).
Dawn O'Donnell and the Imperial Hotel as a LGBTQIA+ hotel:
In 1983 the Imperial Hotel was sold to Sydney businesswoman and LGBTQIA+ entrepreneur Dawn O'Donnell. O'Donnell was well known in the Sydney gay and lesbian scene by this time having started buying and managing bars and social clubs in the 1960s. Born in Sydney in 1928, O'Donnell had been briefly married to a butcher and continued to run the business after their divorce. In 1968 she opened her first LGBTQIA+ bar called The Trolley Bar, a wine bar off Broadway, which was followed by Sydney's first lesbian bath house, located in Bondi and then Capriccios, a gay bar and theatre on Oxford Street in 1969. Along with the Ivy Birdcage which opened the same year, Capriccios was a foundation LGBTQIA+ club on Oxford Street. Its flamboyant drag shows, late night licence and multiple bars made it a popular nighttime venue, while its openly LGBTQIA+ performances and clientele defied the laws which still considered homosexuality a crime.
O'Donnell followed by opening the cabaret club Jools Theatre Restaurant, which attracted international acts, then Patches, Flo's, the Exchange Hotel and Ruby Reds, Sydney's first lesbian only bar which she co-owned with Abe Saffron. Her clubs and bars were seen as safe spaces for the community at a time when discrimination and criminal charges were common. O'Donnell also owned and operated the Toolshed, one of Sydney's longest running adult businesses (Dunn 2023).
O'Donnell's business partnerships with Abe Saffron and supposed involvement in paying for police protection and other activities in a time when homosexuality was still considered a crime in NSW surrounded her in controversy and rumour. She was well known for providing bail money for those arrested under the laws but was famously never arrested or charged with anything herself despite her public operations of the clubs and bars. During her life she actively encouraged stories of her connections and influence which were explored in a documentary of her life, Croc-A-Dyke Dundee: The Legend of Dawn O'Donnell (2014) made after she died in 2007. Through her many businesses on Oxford Street and in the surrounding neighbourhood she was credited with transforming Oxford Street into a famous LGBTQIA+ precinct.
In 1983 O'Donnell purchased the Newtown Hotel on King Street Newtown, and the Imperial Hotel at Erskineville, introducing drag shows and revues to both. The Imperial Hotel, set away from King Street, the main commercial street in the area, developed as the preferred venue amongst the community as it remained more of an LGBTQIA+ venue. Shows such as Simone's Rip Off and other drag shows performed in the main bar and the basement bar increased its popularity, with many in the community feeling the Imperial provided a safe space away from Oxford Street, where their orientation no matter what it was, was accepted (Dunn 2023).
In1994 the Australian film The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, used the Imperial Hotel as a location for the beginning and end of the film. Dance and drag sequences were filmed in the bar, with the film's road trip narrative starting at the hotel. The film increased the popularity of the Imperial and shows on the Priscilla theme became a regular part of the performances. While Priscilla was embraced by the community, it also had an effect of bringing the drag culture to the attention of non-LGBTQIA+ community, further normalising the scene. It also marked the beginnings of Newtown and Erskineville as queer places as Oxford Street's influence began to wane (Dunn 2023).
21st Century ownership and modifications:
In 1996 the adjacent terrace property at 37 Erskineville Road was purchased by the hotel and in 1997, approval was given for the erection of a single storey extension to the hotel into the rear garden area of the adjoining terrace.
O'Donnell sold the Imperial Hotel in c.2002 to Shadd Denessi, owner of Arc nightclub on Oxford Street. Undergoing a long renovation, the hotel struggled to maintain its community connections, gradually rebuilding its place through the 2000s. Leased to a nightclub operator in 2015, the hotel was raided multiple times by police and eventually closed under order of the office of Liquor and Gaming. Sold once again to local publicans, the Imperial management made renewed efforts to reconnect with the LGBTQIA+ 2018 Mardi Gras.
In 2017 Alexander and Co completed an interior design and refurbishment project for the Imperial Hotel. The project was shortlisted for several awards. The hotel re-opened in time for the 2018 Mardi Gras. In 2022 a DA application was approved to construct a bar on the rooftop level and serve food and drink. It was bought by Universal Hotels Pty Ltd (Universal Hotels Group) in 2023 and has remained under operation.
The Imperial Hotel has gained an international reputation as an LGBTQIA+ venue and continues to have regular drag shows and community parties and events. The hotel has operated as a LGBTQIA+ friendly space since 1983 making it one of Sydney's longest running venues away from the main Oxford Street precinct (Dunn 2023). |