Customs Street East
1880s (unknown photographer) - 2025
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1880s image: Auckland War Memorial Museum Tāmaki Paenga Hira | Customs Street East, photographer unknown, PH-RES-732
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The view is looking east from Queen Street. Although poorly resolved in this print, at left can be seen workers in the process of demolishing Point Britomart (see detail below).
Below: Two crops from the 1880s image. Click on images for then-and-now transitions.
The detail above shows the work on the demolition of Point Britomart at left. What appear to be a pair of tunnels driven into the cliff face suggests that the date for this photograph may be 1884. See a then-and-now treatment of workers demolishing Point Britomart on this site here for more on these tunnels and an 1884 newspaper report that mentions them.
Right of centre is the Britomart Hotel, on the eastern corner of Gore Street; this building is still standing in 2025, little changed in its outward appearance.
The corner of Commerce Street is at left in the detail above, with Fort Lane at centre.
For a Burton Brothers photograph showing a similar view made from street level at about the same date, click here.
