Subscribe to RSSClowns Open Aotea Square
Bubble-blowers, clowns on stilts, unicyclists and hot dog and Coke stalls greeted Auckland City residents and ratepayers as they drifted onto the re-opened Aotea Square at midday today.
It was a typical low key Auckland City council event but came with the promise of musical entertainment later.
PICTURES OF THE SQUARE here
9 Comments
Thanks for the pics and the quick time for uploading.
It does look good and I intend to visit this week
John Banks would have felt right at home
around all that concrete? probably.
I really would like to see the CBD used by the general Kiwi public more. When I lived in town, the only people around were international students and others here on working holiday visas.
I hope areas like this and planned future upgrades will lure in more people to come and have a look. I know when I was a kid living in west Auckland I barely ever went to the CBD but maybe I was just sheltered.
The real issue with Aotea Sq and the vast cost of the rebuild is that if our planners [not just traffic engineers I know] hadn’t been so determined on a car only future for Auckland we would never have had to face building the thing, twice! This place is a monument to the cost of auto-dependency… but it and its ilk are never on any balance sheet when there are comparisons between more motorways and transit….
I know you all know this I but its important to remind us all…. The clowns are perfect, how much motorway infrastructure from the 60s, 70s, and 80s are we rebuilding right now? And they say we can’t afford to build the rail….. if so its because were buying that other system again, and again, and again, and of course at the gas station and the car yard and the parking building too.
The Saturday markets in Aotea Square were always full of ‘normal’ kiwis - it’s a shame they’ve been pushed out. Thanks Auckland City Council.
Rtc - why should they not come back?
Also, there’s enough locals living and working in the area now that it should be very much an “Aucklander” space.
Aotea sq on its own is probably a pretty good hangout/meetup spot for younger cbd dwellers as you say Andy. And events like the market are likely to bring in a wider cross-section of people. Perhaps thats what it needs more often. I can’t imagine many groups of older suburbanites and/or families heading to the square or other public parts of the cbd for those spaces own sake, without something happening to draw them in. Things like lantern festival or symphony in the park are good examples of it on a much larger scale, but most of those people would never reach albert park / the domain otherwise.
karl - re why should they not come back? Hopefully they will , under the Super City, but when Auckland City were canvassing on opinions on the Aotea Sq work they made it clear their intention was for the markets not to be a feature in the future. When I questioned this they could not come up with any kind of answer. Bring them back I say.