The section of Oxford Terrace between Madras and Manchester is open once more. You can’t go through, just up to the end and back. It felt really strange to walk along this so-familiar path which has been prohibited for more than a year.
Armagh-Oxford Terrace corner
Where once the Bourbon Rose and Subway stood, there are now weeds. At least Verkerks’ building has survived.
Poplar Crescent
Poplar Crescent looks just the same.
Bohemian Cafe and Bar
The Bohemian’s doors are boarded up but the building looks okay. The fact that there’s no fence around it bodes well.
Elsie Locke Park
Elsie Locke Park has been mowed, but the prospect for the Centennial Pool is bleak. The drinking fountain on the riverbank opposite is working, suggesting services in the area are okay.
Edmonds Clocktower
The Edmonds Clocktower has now been fenced and braced. I hope this means it will be preserved.
“It seemed so strange to place my feet
once more upon this well-loved street.”
Your experiences with the “new/old, nothing is the same anymore” must be something akin to what people who have been institutionalised or unconscious for a period of time, experience. Much has to be relearnt or stored away to form new patterns and memories.
Was there a low mist in the background of your first and final photos Ruth? If so, it provides a rather ghostly context to the “ghosts” you are remembering.
The bracing on the clocktower looks very sturdy.
I see little signs of hope as you explore this familiar but much changed territory.
I was appalled at all the gaps when I drove down it – horrific. No Poplars, no backpackers or Harcourts, no churches, let alone CTV… and now the IRD to go too. Mind numbing indeed.
have you seen this too?
http://rebuildshakeytown.blogspot.co.nz/2012/05/memories-on-madras.html
following your footsteps in the ongoing changes to your neighbourhood…..your observations give me a perspective on what was, what is….and possibly what may well be…. A good reminder Ruth after I have just had a large tender sent off to Fonterra today
Thank you all for visitng and commenting. OG I don’t think there was any mist, just clouds and low sun.
I’ve double clicked on the two photos I had wondered about and I see now that it is just the light reflecting in the low sun and off white surfaces.