Sydney’s Hip Spot

It’s downright discriminatory when articles such as Ken Baron’s “Sydney’s Hip Spot” (Sept. 25), keep invisible the large gay community that exists on the very street he focuses on. How can anyone write about Oxford Street and its neighborhoods without mentioning the open and significant gay stores, restaurants, nightclubs and street life (the world’s largest gay event, Mardi Gras, occurs along Oxford Street every February)? How can any editor not be alert to these omissions? This would be similar to a story on Santa Monica Boulevard that does not mention the gay section of West Hollywood, or Castro Street in San Francisco and Christopher Street in New York.

PETER M. NARDI

Los Angeles

Editor’s note: According to the Australian Tourist Commission, Paddington is one of several gay-friendly neighborhoods in Sydney. Oxford Street, which runs through Paddington, includes many gay-owned and gay-oriented businesses. But those businesses are concentrated along the stretch of Oxford Street that passes through the nearby Darlinghurst neighborhood, notes Danny Vadasz, publisher of Sydney-based OutRage Magazine, a leading Australian gay publication.