03-07-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
Sydney Grammar's $39 million new building next door to a brothel
Times are a-changin' at Sydney Grammar, where headmaster Richard Malpass addressed his final assembly in charge of the $45,000-a-year private school this week. He's off to Singapore to start a new gig as head of senior school at the Tanglin Trust School.
This column last encountered Malpass and Grammar when the headmaster abruptly cancelled a planned talk by former Socceroo turned human rights advocate and outspoken critic of Israel's conduct in Gaza, Craig Foster, citing concerns about the 'wellbeing' of the school community.
Despite Foster's cancellation, those monthly talkfests have been a hit, with Grammar boys hearing from the likes of Julie Bishop and Tony Blair's spinner turned hit podcaster Alastair Campbell (who to be fair, would talk to a brick wall if given the chance).
But Malpass' real final legacy to Grammar was a $39 million inner-city expansion, revealed by the Herald last year. The college acquired a quiet block in Darlinghurst that was once Sony's Australian headquarters, with plans to create new indoor sporting facilities, a statement in the never-ending buildings arms race which has gripped the city's wealthiest private schools.
Grammar is also in the process of building its $54 million Weigall Sports Complex in Rushcutters' Bay, currently an unsightly sprawl of construction work visible from the T4, which was approved in 2021 despite vocal complaints from locals.
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But if you thought the Darlinghurst site might be less controversial than Weigall, think again. A few concerned members of the school community have been in touch recently to inform us the new building is right next door to one of Sydney's oldest legal brothels.
'The school places great store on providing holistic education for our pupils, including physical health and wellbeing,' Malpass said, when announcing the new expansion. Indeed.
While there's nothing wrong with living next door to a brothel per se, we don't imagine the kind of characters who patronise such establishments to be whom Grammar parents had in mind as the best role models.
