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A glimpse into the past
Oct. 1st, 2010 08:49 amIf you examine the Newton/Arch Hill/Eden Terrace/Grafton area of Auckland on Google Maps, you can see that the map retains the outlines of the old streets that they knocked down, or bifurcated, to make the motorway (where they're not directly under the motorway, of course).
This is my neighbourhood, more or less, and I find myself wandering the old streets still remaining trying to imagine what this was like when it was a thriving working class / Polynesian / bohemian / "slum" suburb, before the motorway went in and the Polynesians went out to Mangere and Otara. For Wellingtonians, imagine if they'd gone ahead and put that motorway up Aro St to Karori in the 70's. That's precisely what it's like.
This is the kind of thing that my odd quasi-aspie brain finds obsessively interesting - call it "retro-urban geography". The most interesting thing is to examine the parts that still remain (Arch Hill, Eden Terrace and the back lanes of K' Road in particular) and imagine how, once, they all joined up as an organic whole.
ETA: Oh, I see I'm not the first to notice this.
This is my neighbourhood, more or less, and I find myself wandering the old streets still remaining trying to imagine what this was like when it was a thriving working class / Polynesian / bohemian / "slum" suburb, before the motorway went in and the Polynesians went out to Mangere and Otara. For Wellingtonians, imagine if they'd gone ahead and put that motorway up Aro St to Karori in the 70's. That's precisely what it's like.
This is the kind of thing that my odd quasi-aspie brain finds obsessively interesting - call it "retro-urban geography". The most interesting thing is to examine the parts that still remain (Arch Hill, Eden Terrace and the back lanes of K' Road in particular) and imagine how, once, they all joined up as an organic whole.
ETA: Oh, I see I'm not the first to notice this.
