REGENT THEATRE, 1928-89 The Regent Place arcade and apartment tower stand where the Regent Theatre once screened Hollywood’s finest films. This part of George Street was an amusement mecca in the 30s and 40s, with the Trocadero Palais de Dance next door, the Century and the Plaza theatres across the road and the Victory Theatre three doors down. Cinemas struggled after the arrival of television in 1956. The construction of the first Hoyts multiplex in 1976 marked the end for single-screen theatres. The Regent, the grandest of them all, couldn’t last.

Photograph: Sam Hood/State Library of NSW