Part Three
205-225 Queen Street
by Riley Bogard-Allan*
205-225 Queen Street
At the heart of Auckland’s bustling CBD stands 205 Queen Street, a site rich in historical and cultural significance. From its beginnings as Auckland’s first courthouse and jail in the mid-nineteenth century to its transformation into a towering symbol of corporate ambition in the 1980s, this address has embodied the city’s evolution. Over the decades, 205 Queen Street has mirrored Auckland’s growth – from small colonial settlement to a modern, globally connected metropolis.
205 Queen Street has a storied history that begins in Auckland’s earliest days as a burgeoning colonial settlement. In the mid-19th century, 1840 to 1865, the site – in fact, the whole block bounded by Queen, Victoria, Elliot and Darby Streets – was home to Auckland’s first courthouse and jail. There was also the debtor’s block, the guardroom, the gaoler’s house and smaller structures like the cookhouse and some ‘privies’. This was a full service site, standing ‘as the symbol of law and order in the new colony, where a person could be imprisoned, tried, sentenced, hung, and buried’.
We learn the courthouse was ‘stoutly designed’: basalt foundations, large structural timbers for the framework, major joins strengthened with iron plates and classic nineteenth century weatherboards. The lock-up and gaoler’s houses were brick forms. An 1853 Daily Southern Cross report entitled ‘Horrible state of the Auckland gaol’ described prison conditions as ‘inhuman’, ‘barbarous’ and ‘a rotten and ruinous hovel, overrun with rats and only fit to be used as a place of torture’. The lock up was described by the head gaoler in 1862 as ‘…the most disgraceful that I ever saw in my life. It is not fit for any civilised community.’
By definition, the early life of 205 Queen Street was a cornerstone of the city’s administrative and judicial foundation in the new colony. But consistent with the conditions of isolation its inmates lived in, the site was deliberately separate from the rest of the Auckland settlement. In 1840, Queen Street was a new settlement in a new area. Military men were venturing deeper into Tāmaki Makaurau one area at a time. We learn ‘[w]here Albert and Hobson Streets now run was regarded as the country, an area which provided firewood for the early settlers’, while in December 1840 Wellesley Street was ‘… a distant terra incognita, which few cared to explore through the thick fern and tupake brushwood’. Traversing the Queen Street swamps was difficult and ‘unfortunates’ had to be rescued. And by 1845, ‘the gaol was still on the outskirts of the settlement and at all times it had a buffer zone of some 20 metres (to the edge of the gaol block) before any non-gaol activities began in earnest.’
Deliberately, few pictures exist of the old courthouse and jail.
For fifteen years the Queen Street Gaol served as the only prison in Auckland. It was gradually replaced from 1856 by the new gaol at the base of Mt Eden. By November 1865, the last remaining prisoners had been moved from the Queen Street location to Mount Eden and the former closed its doors for the last time. This paved the way for the site’s transformation into a commercial hub, reflecting the city’s shift from a colonial outpost to a growing urban centre.
A pamphlet advertising the auction of the whole block in 1875.
The earliest beginnings for such a commercial hub began immediately. The site was at first in use as a market from 1866 to 1874. Temporary structures and stalls outside the courthouse had already sold poultry, hardware, fruit and crockery on Queen Street. Development accelerated in 1875 when the block was deemed to have become ‘an embarrassing eyesore’ and marked for demolition. The Evening Standard reported that although some onlookers mourned the 10 July demolition, ‘Others regarded the fall of the miserable buildings as a promise of better things’. The newly cleared block was divided in 14 allotments and sold – the bidding for the six allotments facing Queen Street was ‘rather spirited’. Thus, the promise of new houses and shops, symbols of ‘hope flowering above ruins of the dead past’, were realised. We learn the buildings were ‘felled to make way for a more illustrious frontage, which was still easy on the eye over a century later’.
Nearest is 205 Queen Street, circa 1880.
Explicit coverage of 205 Queen Street is limited throughout the intervening period 1875-1987. A collection of source material lends to its continued use as a retail location, with some exceptions. One photograph shows tea dealers W. Spragg & Co. operating at 205. In 1916, the Singer Sewing Machine Company and Schneideman Brothers, a clothing manufacturer, occupied space in the block. A chemist, confectioner, grocer and jeweller all appear in valuation sheets over the first half of the twentieth century. 205 Queen Street was given the name City Chambers in this period, although it is unclear to what extent it was used as such. Another exception to our going assumption of 205 as a retail location was its housing of a dentist. Still, a dentist is a far cry from the multinational organisations that would soon take over. In any case, the century from 205 Queen Street’s 1875 reinvention saw the location continue to reflect Auckland society.
Cnr Queen Street and Victoria Street West, ca. 1885-2021: Photographer Brian Donovan’s ‘Then and Now’ series comparing old and new Auckland is highly illuminating.
205 Queen Street would again be transformed as the 1980s took hold. Most of the buildings erected after the 1875 demolition, selling and redevelopment of the block were still standing in 1987. In March of that year, demolition again commenced following another redevelopment proposal. True to our theme across this research series of white collar dominance over the CBD during the 1980s, the proposal to the Public Trustee was submitted by The National Bank of New Zealand, supported by New Zealand Insurance Corporation (they also had their name on the previously discussed Fay Richwhite/NZI tower in Article 1 of this series) and Realty Development Corporation as joint venture partners.
A transforming city: Council Planning Committee members studying a model of the 1987 CBD Plan.
‘Yuppie’ philistines were not the only ones in charge of this round of redevelopment. Conscious of the block’s historical significance, the developers funded a salvage excavation under Section 46 of the Historic Places Act 1980. The preliminary and final report of this have been the main source of information for this article. But there were shortcomings to the excavation. First, it took place over just nine days, from 16 to 25 June 1987. Second, the lack of funding and resources dedicated to the project meant only a ‘minimum amount’ of research was undertaken prior to the excavation. Third, primitive tactics in the form of ‘over-enthusiastic use of the excavating machinery’ led to warnings from site engineers that Elliot Street could collapse, so the area concerned was covered up and left. The report on the excavation at 205 Queen Street concluded that ‘the archaeological investigations were extremely limited in both scale and scope.’ Its author, Simon Best of the Department of Conservation, lamented that more resources were not available to investigate what he called ‘one of the earliest historic sites in New Zealand’.
Left: Specific points areas of interest, such as the Courthouse and Gaoler’s Houses, were identified for excavation. Right: The excavation of the block that took place was fundamentally flawed.
Predictably, it was a skyscraper that emerged at 205 Queen Street. Uniquely, the Arthur Andersen Tower was part of a twin tower project. Diagonally opposite Tower 1 sits Tower 2, the Phillips Fox Tower. Together they make up the National Bank Centre. The two buildings are similarly constructed: reinforced concrete with granite cladding on lower levels and curtain walling above. Their sleek, glass-clad facades and minimalist lines reflected 1980s urban development. These towers were a display of power and wealth on one hand and telling uniformity on the other. One key difference between the two towers is in height. The Arthur Andersen Tower has 17 floors while the Phillips Fox Tower has 22 floors. Like so many high-rises in the CBD, the project managers and contractors were Mainzeal Corporation. Mainzeal’s people were undeterred, and perhaps spurred on, by a comment made by one of its directors during the period of the twin-towers’ construction that, ‘most of old Auckland is a heap of junk’. On completion in 1990, the value of the twin towers was approximately $180 million.
Street images capturing the construction of the Arthur Anderson Tower.
The impressive National Bank Centre.
As with the previously canvassed 131 and 151 Queen Street sites, 205’s occupants reflected change in Auckland’s CBD. Through the eighties and nineties, the National Bank had head-lease of Phillips Fox and occupied space in the first four floors of Arthur Andersen as banking space (a starting point for this article was recognising that ANZ’s Queen Street branch is located exactly where the courthouse and jail once stood). Phillips Fox was a law firm and Arthur Andersen a global accounting firm. Another law firm, a French bank, multiple investment houses and a global reinsurance company all leased office space in these buildings by the 1990s. Another standout is Netway Communications, a Telecom subsidiary, who had seven floors in Phillips Fox in what was understood to be the largest CBD lease in 1995. The tenants at 205 Queen Street were certainly characteristic of the times, and a glaring contrast to the hordes of retailers – and before them, prisoners – who occupied the block in years gone by. But in this we can observe how the site, through both continuity and change, has reflected society at any given moment in time.
In ‘A Place to Stand’ (1978) Peter Siddell foresaw the onslaught of mirror glass in the CBD.
The history of 205 Queen Street illustrates Auckland’s growth in a raw and confronting manner. From 205’s origins as the city’s first courthouse and jail to its status throughout the 1980s and today as a hub for corporate and professional activity, the site has continually evolved to meet the needs of its community – even if those needs attracted criticism. A century after the site was first demolished and repurposed, the construction of the Phillips Fox and Arthur Andersen towers in the 1980s marked a turning point, embodying the city’s aspirations for modernisation and global connectivity. But at what cost?
The conclusion of this third article ends my research project entitled ‘Queen Street’s Gilded Age: Changes to the Auckland CBD over time.’ It is clear the physical makeup of Auckland’s CBD has reflected that area’s social and cultural environment – perhaps not completely so at any one time, but certainly over the broad arc of history. True to my research’s title, this is best illustrated with the changes to Queen Street in the 1980s. My three case study locations represent but a few of the numerous research-worthy stories lining our country’s main street.
America’s Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century consisted of unprecedented economic growth which masked inequality and poverty. A similar event took place in New Zealand in the 1980s. While skyscrapers were erected on Queen Street at least two other events were taking place. First, other parts of the country suffered from harsh economic reform, a well-documented fact no matter how necessary those reforms in the long term. Second, much of the built heritage in places like Queen Street was being torn down. This is problematic. Aside from the loss of stunning architecture, charming interiors and locations that promoted social cohesion, the act of their demise is a harsh indictment on society’s attitudes at the time. A perceptive John Stacpoole put it best when he spoke of the demolition of the historic BNZ Building at 125 Queen Street in 1986: ‘Its owners have stolen away from Queen Street a fine, rich, Victorian brick building and given us nothing that would remotely repair that loss.’