The Empress Hotel on Regent Street (photograph courtesy City of Sydney Archives - Mark Stevens Collection, 48575)
Location: 87 Regent Street Redfern
The Empress Hotel on Regent Street was frequented by Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people from the 1940s through to the 1970s. Although it was a place where Aboriginal people were able to drink and socialise freely, it was also a site for heavy handed police action. Aboriginal activists who began to record police harassment at the Empress created the foundations of the Aboriginal Legal Service in 1970.
Further reading: Catie Gilchrist, The Empress Hotel, Redfern, Dictionary of Sydney, 2015, http://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/the_empress_hotel_redfern, viewed 27 July 2015
