Homebush Theatre fire: Suspicious blazer under investigation
Updated ,first published
Police are investigating a suspicious fire that broke out overnight at the abandoned Homebush Theater on Parramatta Road.
Emergency services were called to the scene just after 12.40pm on Wednesday after reports of a fire in the building.
The fire broke out two days later reporter published a story on the history of the theatre, revealing the full extent of the dilapidation of the 100-year-old building.
“Officers attached to Auburn Police Area Command attended the scene and located a small fire in a building before Fire and Rescue NSW extinguished it,” a police spokesman said.
“There were no injuries due to the incident.”
The crime scene was identified and the police launched an investigation.
A Fire and Rescue spokesman said the small rubbish fire broke out on the second floor and was quickly extinguished, causing no significant damage to the building.
The building was closed in 1996 and fell into serious disrepair.
The old theater has since become a popular site of urban exploration; Videos and photos taken inside the building are regularly shared on social media.
Over the course of a century, the Homebush Theater has had many different lives. It operated as a cinema, ice rink, restaurant and reception center before closing in 1996. For a brief period in 2002, slum dwellers began occupying the place and named it the “Midnight Star Social Centre.”
For almost a year it was used to organize parties, pirated cinema screenings and activist meetings; residents were subsequently evacuated by police due to concerns that it was being used as a “nerve center for anarchists”.
The building is owned by a company called Oretone, a subsidiary of the Bondi-based liquor group. kemenys – and is currently being prepared for sale, with an expressions of interest campaign launching soon.
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Ellie Busby is a Parramatta reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald.Connect with: X or email.
