What Is and What Might Be | Shortland Street
1907 (New Zealand Graphic) - 2024
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1907 image: The New Zealand Graphic | Auckland Libraries Heritage Collections NZG-19070608-0010-02
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The 1907 photograph was published in the 8 June, 1907 issue of the Graphic as one of a pair of pictures illustrating a proposal to build a new central post office on the corner of Shortland and High Streets. (The Graphic seemed quite fond of printing pairs of contrasting pictures, often with pairs of "then and now" images; an example on this site is here.) Below, a reconstruction of the Graphic's page with the 1907 photograph.
Below, a reconstruction of the following page. In the event, Auckland's new post office was built not here but on a site in Lower Queen Street (in 1909-1912) where today it is the Waitematā Station (Britomart). The "old-fashioned" buildings on Shortland Street thus lingered into the 1920s (see for example here on this site) until the 1925 widening of High Street.
