Our Stories
The inner city of Wellington is full of stories. It’s full of history and has tales to tell about the people and places that have shaped the quirky, diverse and uniquely different ‘our patch’ part of Te Whanganui-a-Tara. In this area, we’ll be sharing some of the discoveries we’ve made. And if you have an ‘Our Patch’ story to share, we’d love to hear from you - contact us.
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First - A bit of history
Every story has a beginning, and a middle, but not always an ending. To read about Te Whanganui-a-Tara/Wellington’s beginning and some middle bits, these are great sites to visit.
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Street Smart: A brief history of our streets
From pre-European ara (paths) all the way to Let’s Get Wellington Moving and everything in between. The story of Wellington streets and their use is very much a story of the city itself.
Read the full WCC story here
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A (wee) history of public toilets in Wellington
Did you know the history of public toilets in Wellington includes espionage, typhoid and women’s rights? No? Well, have we got a wee tale for you.
Read the full WCC story here
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The Ghosts of St James Theatre
Rumoured to have several resident ghosts, the St James Theatre offers a unique type of stage fright.
Read the full WCC story here
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Why are Wellington’s streets so darn narrow?
From WCC’s Street Smart series:
Ever wondered why Wellington’s streets are so darn narrow? Wellington City Council’s local historian Gábor Tóth recounts the tale.
“Having already pre-sold about 1000 sections, with another 100 set aside for mana whenua, they needed to squeeze all of those town acres into the land area that had been purchased. One of the results was very narrow roads, particularly around the CBD.”
Read the full story here
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Streets with interesting histories
From WCC’s Friday Five series:
From a raging jazz club to a famous Rangatira (chief) to one of the wealthiest families in Aotearoa; discover the fascinating history and stories behind five of Wellington's streets.
“Now known as Farmers Lane, this street is one of many shortcuts from Lambton Quay to The Terrace. When the steps were formed in 1881, the area was named York Lane but a few years later it became Tokio Lane.”
Read the full story here
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Walking the streets - back in time
This story, from the Council’s website, begins with these paragraphs:
“When we think of Wellington’s streets a few things may come to mind. It could be the grid-like layout of our central city, the winding roads that meander out to the suburbs, or the steep and narrow streets that crawl their way up our hills.
All are accurate, and tell us a lot about our general perceptions around what streets look like and how they’re used today. But of course it hasn’t always been this way.
To get a better sense of how our streets and their use have changed over time, we need to start further back in our city’s history – a lot further back.”
Read the full story here
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Art Deco in the city
We know Napier is the art deco centre of Aotearoa New Zealand, but we have some examples too. In Taranaki Street, you’ll find a building that represents a style of architecture that was very popular in the 1920s and 1930s. So what’s the history of this building, and who were the people who worked there?
Read the story here.
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Nature in the city
As we walk along the harbourside paths we may not realise that we are not alone.
Read the story here.
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From Steam and Carriage Works
This building in the inner city has changed with the times. Starting out as a coach-building factory it moved into steam, and then into motor cars - and now it has a new life - as a hotel.
Read the story here
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Dating back to 1879
Wellington was once a city full of wooden buildings so it’s not surprising that fire was a very real hazard for inner-city communities back then. This played a major part in where this building is located today.
Read the story here
See also: In Our Patch