Heritage et AL

There's a bit of a movement around at the moment to #Bringbackthetrams. It's timely, given we've included trams in our latest heritage display on the second floor of the Central Library, 'Auckland's amenities', as trams were indeed the lifeblood of Auckland for decades. They ran from the mid 1880s - originally horse drawn - until 1956 when the last tram took its final ride along the city to Onehunga route. At their peak in the 1940s, it's estimated around 99 million rides were taken on trams - a phenomenal number when Auckland's population was around the 200,000 mark. Ref: Henry Winkelmann, Looking south up Queen Street from the Gladtone Coffee Palace..., April 1903, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 1-W1042.  

Auckland was the smelliest city in New Zealand according to a visiting reporter in 1871. Raw sewage ran into Queen Street’s main drain, the Ligar Canal, “an open, evil-smelling sewer in the very heart of the city” .  A writer in the Daily Southern Cross said the “stench was worse than asafoetida or sulphureted hydrogen, or an American skunk, or all three combined… daily and nightly the abominations of this great city are discharged, to swelter upon the shore, within twenty yards of its chief street.” He believed the city fathers should be sacked immediately because they “will… not open [their] purse-strings… to resolve the issue of sewage disposal.” Ref: James D Richardson,  Looking north west along Queen Street, Auckland Central showing the Ligar Canal..., 1857, Sir George Grey Special Collections, Auckland Libraries, 4-387. 

Looking through the Footprints database I was surprised how many images depicting official openings of bridges there were in South Auckland. In the good old days, and even in the not so early days these ceremonies were major events on the social calendar. Everyone turned up wearing their Sunday best. Ref: David Bryan, Opening ceremony, Clevedon wharf bridge, 1908, photograph reproduced courtesy of Clevedon and District Historical Society, South Auckland Research Centre, Auckland Libraries, Footprints 02585.