Old Taranaki Street

Old Taranaki Street - Originally uploaded by National Library of New Zealand

Wicked stuff

Via Flickr:
Courtenay Place, Wellington, ca 1920, Gordon Burt negatives, Alexander Turnbull Library, Reference: 1/2-037197

Published in the Capital Times, 28 March 2012

Here is a panorama of the Courtenay Place/Taranaki intersection, around about 1918. The photographer was about where Molly Malones is now. Manners and Dixon Streets stretch out to the right. Left of centre Taranaki Street disappears off into the distance.

Taranaki Street was much narrower then. All the buildings on the right hand side were demolished in the 1920s when the street was widened. Hardly any of the the other buildings in the photograph have survived either, although the Ford building on the left is still there, hidden behind a modern block.

As the Ford sign suggests the automobile age was coming. But it was not quite there yet. There were not many cars, no traffic lights, and still lots of horses. On the original print you can see the ever-present speckles of horse manure scattered all over the streets.

Take a closer look

See more photos of Taranaki Street last century

Permission of the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga O Aotearoa, must be obtained before any reuse of this image.