The long-awaited Auckland City Rail Link is set to open in the second half of this year, completing New Zealand’s largest transport infrastructure project.
The deepest part of the system is almost 42m underground, but for a major city where space has nearly always been at a premium, it’s perhaps surprising that going far beneath the road surface is a rare thing.
Lecturer in architecture and planning at the University of Auckland, Bill McKay, says in the past, the combination of volcanic rock and a high water table has discouraged development – but with modern boring equipment, that’s changing.
The Detail today goes for a walk with him to find out what else lies beneath Auckland’s CBD, uncovering a hidden history that many city dwellers would be unaware of.
From streams to war shelters and more, Auckland Central has a rich – and sometimes pungent – underground history that spans back to when colonists first arrived in Auckland.
Part of that history has been daylighted by the naming of the new Waihorotiu station, the one nearest Aotea Square, after the stream that runs under Queen St. Calls over the years to also daylight the stream have fallen on deaf ears.
McKay says the body of water, too small to be called a river, was nonetheless important for the people who lived in the area.
“It was a great food source, and I was just reading the other day of a very early site on Queen Street where two eras of Māori were living and they were gardening there.”
Originating from a spring in Myers Park, the Waihorotiu Stream flowed through a wetland where Aotea Square now sits and continues down the Queen Street valley.
But when colonists arrived and started establishing Auckland, the stream was converted into a sewer.
“All the sewage, all the rubbish, scraps, you name it, it was dumped in there,” says McKay. “And it was renamed the Ligar Canal.”
It was built over, and when the road is occasionally dug up you can sometimes still see some of the arched bricks that cover it.
However, the Waihorotiu Stream isn’t the only gem hidden away from the public. Dug into the hill that Albert Park sits on, the Albert Park Air Raid Shelters were built – by hand – during World War II as a precautionary measure against potential Japanese bombing attacks.
It would have held thousands of Aucklanders in tunnels shaped like hash tags to escape blasts, but McKay says construction didn’t even last the length of the war.
“We actually stopped early because as the Americans really got involved, there were some big naval battles down in the Coral Sea, they pushed the Japanese back so there was less fear of invasion. So, we actually closed down the tunnels while the war was still on.”
Now filled with stacks of bricks, the tunnels have been closed ever since, but there have been pitches for them to be restored for walkers, cyclists, tourists and commuters. It would give Parnell residents an easy way to get to town without scaling the hill.
But McKay says the tunnels aren’t up to scratch, and these days there are more pressing demands on ratepayer funds.
“In terms of health and safety, it would require extensive mitigation and strengthening.”
The air raid shelters aren’t the only structure closed for public use.
If you regularly walk up to the Auckland Art Gallery or AUT from Queen Street, you’ve more than likely walked past a caged-off set of stairs that leads under Wellesley Street East.
Follow the path down and you’ll find yourself in a century-old women’s bathroom.
The toilets are now closed off to the public, but McKay estimates that they were built in the 1920s or 30s.
Although it may be in an odd location now, it was conveniently placed at the time.
“The building that is the art gallery now, that was both the art gallery and library so it’s quite handy. If it was after hours at the art gallery and library, you’ve still got a toilet,” says McKay.
But why build it underground in the first place?
McKay points out that toilets aren’t the most pleasant thing to look at.
“Even though we have acres of footpath [on Wellesley Street East], it’s just a sense of decorum, privacy, that sort of thing … People have always associated toilets and the functions that go on there as dirty and nasty and best kept out of sight.”
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