The Thousands

Designed by Robert Woodward, the El Alamein Fountain stands in the heart of Sydney’s red-light district, reminiscent of a Jeff Koons take on the humble dandelion. It’s iconic of the flash-trash era of the Cross’s heyday, where Les Girls, Sweethearts, Porkys and a bloody mary at the Bourbon and Beefsteak were all class!

The fountain provides a beacon for Kings Cross’s transient family of ‘Parisians’- backpacked backpackers, underworld underdogs, cracked-out clubbers and pigeon aficionados. There’s also a farmer’s market every Saturday.**As part of the Art and About festival, it has become an uber place of wonder thanks to the guerrilla knitting manoeuvres of Reef Knot. With the surrounding tree trunks, branches, signposts and benches encased in a woolly spectrum of colour, the fountain becomes a beautiful pit stop at the end of the rainbow. This one’s a place for the lost, the curious, the trashed and the fountain gazer, where you can blow and make a wish.