Workers demolishing Point Britomart
1884 (unknown photographer) - 2025
Drag the slider to compare two photographs
|
1884 image: unknown photographer | Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections 5-2375
The view is looking east from modern Customs Street East, with the corner of Fort Street at far right. The 1880s photograph above has a handwritten annotation on its border dating it to 1881 or 1882. However the fact that there are so few structures visible on Point Britomart suggested that the date may be a year or two later; a photograph of the waterfront (see detail below) which seems almost certainly to date from 1883 shows many more structures on the point.
Creator unknown: [The Auckland waterfront]. Ref: PAColl-8474. Alexander Turnbull Library, Wellington, New Zealand. /records/23103806 (detail)
(Click here for a then-and-now treatment of the image above.)
Nor is there any sign in the 'then' image of 'Jacob's Ladder', the stairway from Customs Street to Emily Place atop Point Britomart visible at left in the picture above; this absence, and the locomotive and tunnels seen in the 'then' image, are explained by the 1884 newspaper report below:
New Zealand Herald 8 May 1884 Page 4
And in a June report:
New Zealand Herald 17 June 1884 Page 4
I think there's enough here to stick my neck out and assign a date of 1884 to the historical image.
Below: Two details from the 1884 image.
