90 Years of Fun: The Enduring Smile of Luna Park Sydney

90 Years of Fun: The Enduring Smile of Luna Park Sydney

It’s hard to imagine Sydney without its Art Deco, Heritage-listed world-famous smile on the entrance face at Luna Park. Such is its international appeal, singer Taylor Swift, director Taika Waititi and the reality TV Kardashians made a trip to this harbour icon, like the one million who visit it each year.

Whether it is to go on traditional rides like the Big Dipper, the Rotor and the Wild Mouse or immerse themselves in new worlds based on Netflix hit shows like Squid Game and Stranger Things, Luna Park Sydney caters for all; as it has done for 90 years now.

Before the ‘city of a million lights’ first lit up Milsons Point on opening night 4 October, 1935 the land on which the park stands was steep sandstone cliffs, known as Cammeraygal land. Home to Indigenous people like Barangaroo, a fisherwoman in what was known to be the best fishing grounds in the harbour.

After European settlement, Milsons Point became an important transport interchange where ferries, trains and trams met. Commuters rode here on Australia's first escalator..

Then in the 1920s, it became the site of the former Dorman Long and co workshops, once the biggest workshops in the southern hemisphere, where parts for the Sydney Harbour Bridge, once the the world’s largest steel arch bridge, were made and assembled.

After the bridge opened in 1932, the workshops were demolished. All that was left were weeds, rubble and an old wharf, where Crystal Palace now stands. Then on 22 June 1935, a steamship sailed into Sydney Harbour that would change the face of Sydney forever.

On that wharf, 90 years ago, they unloaded the contents of what was once Luna Park, Adelaide, at what is now Luna Park Sydney. Rides like the Big Dipper, the River Caves, Noah’s Ark and Goofy House, had been numbered, packed up and sent to Sydney, for reassembly.

Luna Park Glenelg opened in 1930 just before the Great Depression hit, in a state that didn’t permit Sunday trading and struggled to turn a profit. South Australia’s loss was New South Wales’ gain. The rides were shipped to Sydney in 1935, and put together again in a record three months, by a team of over 800 workers, many of whom had helped build the bridge. They also created the giant face from chicken wire, plaster and canvas.

It was an instant hit.

It wasn’t the world’s first Luna Park. That honour belongs to Coney Island’s, which began in New York in 1903. It wasn’t even Australia’s first, Melbourne’s Luna Park at St Kilda, started in 1912. In fact, there were once seven Australian Luna Parks, all modelled on the original in America. There were Luna Parks in Egypt, France and Mexico too, part of a chain of 44 amusement parks throughout the world.

Before them there were other early attempts like Melbourne’s Dreamland, Sydney and Perth’s White Cities which failed as spectacularly as Tamarama’s Airem Scarem ride at Sydney’s short-lived Wonderland. Other amusement parks have come and gone.

But Luna Park Sydney has survived.

It's known tragedy – when seven people lost their lives in the fatal ghost train fire of June 1979, causing its closure. It’s known controversy – like the political and legal stoush over noise from the second Big Dipper in the 1990s, which eventually led to another closure in 1996.

Despite attempts to turn it into a World Trade Centre and an adult theme park, after decades of protests and lobbying politicians, it will always be an amusement park.

Thanks to the hard work of the Friends of Luna Park, a band of dedicated Sydneysiders led by the likes of artists Martin Sharp and Peter Kingston, and architect Sam Marshall, the park now belongs to the people of this state; one of only two amusement parks in the world protected thanks to government legislation.

Old favourites like Coney Island, and its slippery slides, the carousel and the ferris wheel remain popular, but now there are also different worlds at Dream Circus and Squid Game: The Experience on offer. You can be terrified and turned upside down on the Sledgehammer, scream on the Hair Raiser or dash about on the Dodgems. There’s something for everyone, whether you seek nostalgia or something new.

From the moment you walk between the face's two towers, its spires modelled on New York’s Chrysler Centre, you are transported back to childhood whatever your age.

Luna Park's had eight faces, and too many touch ups of its eyelashes and teeth to count. But nine decades after it first opened, the place is still beloved. By people like me, who spent my eighth birthday here (still one of the happiest days of my life). I’ve written a book Luna Park: the amazing story behind the smile, to be published by Allen & Unwin and available for sale in March 2026. It's a tale with a carnival of characters straight from Central casting, who created a magical place, Just for Fun.

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This blog was created by former Sydney Morning Herald journalist Helen Pitt, who is now working at the Park, writing a book that will be published by Allen and Unwin next year as part of our 90th celebrations kicking off on October 4th. The Walkley Award winning author of The House: the extraordinary story of the Sydney Opera House and the people who made it, is now turning her forensic gaze across the harbour to tell the story of Sydney’s favourite amusement park. Just for Fun - Just Forever.