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Newmarket
Broadway, the main street of Newmarket.
Local Authority	Auckland City
Characteristics:
Established	1840s
Train stations	Newmarket Train Station
Surrounded by:
North	Parnell
North-east	Broadway Park
East	Remuera
South-east	Remuera
South	Epsom
South-west	Mount Eden
West	Grafton
North-west	(Auckland Domain)

Newmarket is an Auckland suburb to the south-east of the central business district. With its high building density, especially of retail shops, it is considered New Zealand's premier retailing area,^[1] and a rival of local competitor Auckland CBD.

Until the amalgamation of the borough councils into Auckland City Council in 1989, local governance in Newmarket was by the Newmarket Borough Council. The borough, while one of the smallest boroughs in the Auckland Region, was also one of the busiest. This is especially true of Broadway, the main street, which has large shopping centres, many smaller shops, two movie theatres and numerous restaurants, bars and cafés.

[edit] History

[edit] Maori beginnings

The Maori called this area as Te Ti Tutahi, 'the sacred cabbage tree standing alone', referring to a tree which stood on the corner of Mortimer Pass and Broadway until just after 1900. It is possible that some of the cabbage trees around Highwick are descended from this tree.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] European settlement

The earliest subdivision of land in this location took place in June 1841. In 1842 Epsom Road was formed, running from the bottom of town up through Parnell towards the middle of the Auckland isthmus. This was later called Manukau Road before being given its current name, Parnell Road. At this time what is now Manukau Road was called the Onehunga Road.

In 1845 Khyber Pass Road was formed and the intersection of these three roads was called "Hobson's Bridge" referring to a small wooden bridge that crossed over "Hobson's creek" (more or less where the railway track passes near the Olympic Swimming Pool). A very small bridge was the most noteworthy landmark of the area, giving some idea of the rather empty nature of the landscape.

Around 1851 this area received the name Newmarket because it was the site of the 'New Market' for livestock. Farmers would drive their stock up the Manukau, Great South, or Remuera Roads to the market which was better situated than the earlier stock market in Auckland proper. The presence of the railway station next door was also a great advantage. The market was located to the south of Remuera Road and east of Manukau Road.

Overlooking Newmarket on a bluff to the south east is a 19th Century wooden House in the Gothic style called Highwic. The home of a local businessman Alfred Buckland, Highwic is now owned by the Auckland City Council and administered by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust. Another piece of Auckland land owned by Alfred Buckland located further out of town is still called "Bucklands Beach".

[edit] Thriving suburb

Newmarket's Broadway around 1950.

The main road of Newmarket is called Broadway, named apparently after the Broadway Cinema which opened in 1923 for silent films. The building was just a corrugated iron shed behind a modest facade and the cinema itself did not last very long, but the name stuck. Like its New York namesake, Newmarket's Broadway developed a rather bright 'Moderne' flashy image in the 1930s & 1940s and by the 1960s had the biggest collection of neon signs in the country.

For much of the 20th century most road traffic leaving or entering Auckland passed through Newmarket. Leading off Broadway is the beginning of Remuera Road which is the way to the eastern suburbs while further south Broadway splits into Great South Road and the secondary southern route, Manukau Road. The constant flow of traffic only added to Newmarket's fast, modern image and helped a great deal with its prosperity. Around 1966, between 25,000-30,000 cars used the street per day.^[2]

A significant change to the skyline was the Newmarket Viaduct erected in 1966 to take one of the early sections of the Southern Motorway over the railway and half a dozen streets. The new motorway system opened up the new industrial suburbs to the south such as Penrose, Mount Wellington etc. This resulted in much of the local industry moving out of Newmarket and along with it many of the working class people who lived in modest houses in the surrounding streets.

Since the 1960s Newmarket has been largely a retail destination, although a certain amount of light industry still existed in the surrounding streets, the most significant of which is the brewing trade. Ever since the 1840s Newmarket has been the location of several breweries. Water falling on nearby Mount Eden emerges in several reliable springs in the Khyber Pass area. Flowing through large amounts of volcanic scoria it is very well filtered. The Brewery buildings on Khyber Pass Road have been rebuilt but are still landmarks of the area.

The Olympic Swimming Pool was constructed in 1939 to the designs of the borough engineer N. F. Alcock. This Art deco building was opened by the Minister of Internal Affairs, the Hon William Parry in 1940. As well as being the borough's only public amenity the Olympic sized swimming pool was a great asset for the whole of Auckland. Over the years it has been well used and facilitated the hosting of many sporting events by Auckland including the Empire Games in 1950. Recently the pool's streamline art deco form was considerably changed when a cinema complex was built over the pool, which was previously open to the sky. To the north of the Olympic Swimming Pools is the Olympic Park War Memorial.

Located to the south of the Olympic Pools is Lumsden Green. The Green occupies a triangle of land at the intersection of Parnell Road, Broadway and Khyber Pass which had been put aside as a reserve in 1878. The park is ornamented by a modernist fountain, a 19th century canon and a stainless steel sculpture by Marte Szirmay installed in 1969 to mark the Centenary of the Newmarket Highway district. The park is named in honour of David Lumsden, the last Mayor of Newmarket before amalgamation with Auckland City in 1989.

[edit] Modern days

Newmarket from Mount Hobson looking northwest.

Newmarket has become the second shopping and specialty store centre of Auckland City, and also a main entertainment hub. At the same time, the location on one of the major throughfares into and out of the city also led to increasing bottleneck issues, with some claiming during the middle of the 2000s that Council was neglecting the area (though projects like the Central Connector are now (2007) aiming to alleviate this). Traffic gridlock was one of the reasons why a plan for a major new Westfield Group shopping centre near the railway line was hotly contested by the Newmarket Protection Society, a group composed mostly of residents and some local business owners. Partly due to these objections, Westfield later abandoned the plans and instead bought the Two Double Seven shopping centre.^[3]

The Auckland Regional Council has designated Newmarket as a 'strategic managed growth area' in the Regional Growth Strategy, meaning that high-density mixed use (residential and commercial) buildings are encouraged. This is to encourage areas in which work, living and entertainment can be achieved close to each other, limiting the average amount of [especially car-] traffic required every day. Good public transport connections are also considered to assist these policy goals.^[4] Partly due to the increasing attractiveness of living in the city, large apartment buildings are now increasingly springing up in the area.

Māori Television Headquarters has been located in a building at the edge of Newmarket and Parnell since 2004.

In 2007, the Lion Brewery declared its intention to leave Newmarket in the mid-term and sold its 5ha site north of Khyber Pass Road for NZ$ 162 million. The area is likely to become a mixed-use development within the next half decade, marking "the end of Newmarket's industrial age".^[4]

Newmarket's shopping area's wireless CCTV system, a system cooperatively operated by the police and the Newmarket Business Association, has been described as "never having been done on this scale in a New Zealand town centre", and was credited partly for significant falls of some sorts of crime in Newmarket in recent (2009) years.^[5]

[edit] Railway History

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Newmarket was once a centre of railway activity. There was the junction station, two signal boxes, two railway workshop complexes, railway houses, a railway social hall and extensive goods yard. This changed in 1930 when the Newmarket Workshops closed and were replaced by the Otahuhu Workshops. The Workshops bordering Broadway on the other side of the Remuera Road overbridge were torn down. The workshops along Middleton Road were retained and transferred to the New Zealand Post Office for use as Post Office workshops and these structures remained in place until they were unceremoniously torn down in the mid 1990's.

On 22 February 1955 the Railway Lodge No 196 of the Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes was established in the Newmarket Railway Social Hall with a strong presence of over 100 brothers of the order, many of whom had connection with the railways. The Lodge continued to thrive for many years because of its link with the railways. The Railway Lodge 196 is a lodge of the New Zealand constitution of the Grand Lodge of England and continues to function, albeit in Ponsonby, not Newmarket.

In the 1980s the Newmarket Railway Social Hall and many other railway buildings were demolished. By 1995 all that was left of Newmarket's railway heritage was the Fine Station, closed in 1983 and its signal box still manned, and one of the last in New Zealand to utilise the old style lever frame. The old workshop buildings on Middleton Road were demolished in that year. By the 21st century little remained of Newmarket's railway heritage other than the station, the signal box, a few items of preserved rolling stock and the Railway Lodge No 196.

Construction proceeded in 2008 on a new railway station and plaza on the northern side of Remuera Road overbridge, as a part of the Auckland Regional Transport Authority's upgrade of rail stations across the city. Designed by Opus International Consultants, the station will feature two concourses, multiple escalators, and open access to Broadway via a wide plaza. A footbridge will allow access to the station for pedestrians from Remuera Road. The station will be the second largest in New Zealand after Britomart.

[edit] Notable buildings

Highwic house, former homestead, now a function venue at the southwestern edge of Newmarket.

Due to redevelopment Newmarket has lost many of its buildings of historical significance.

• Highwic circa 1863, Gillies Avenue, old homestead of Alfred Buckland; extant & open to the public - has been called one of Auckland's most notable historic houses, built in the Carpenter Gothic style from an American pattern book.^[6]

• Junction Hotel 1850s Cnr of Broadway, Great South & Manukau Roads demolished.

• Newmarket Hotel 1850s, rebuilt 1920s Cnr Broadway & Morrow St demolished.

• St Georges Hotel 1880s Broadway opposite Khyber Pass demolished.

• Carlton Club 1890s corner of Broadway & Khyber Pass Road extant.

• Former Newmarket Manual Training School 1903, Seccombes Rd, moved to this site from Mortimer Pass Road in 1925.

• Captain Cook Brewery, 1870s - 1920s Khyber Pass road, demolished.

• Newmarket Borough Council Chambers 1920s Broadway demolished.

• Former Post Office, 1910, Broadway, John Campbell, altered.

• Rialto Picture Theatre 1920s Broadway, Keith Draffin architect, altered.

• St Peter's College and Christian Brothers House, 1939-1944, William Henry Gummer, architect, extant.

• Former Auckland Electric Power Board Building 1949 Remuera Road, Lew Piper architect. The top floor by J.I. Van Pels, was added in 1964. extant.

• Newmarket Train Station 1908 George Troup architect. extant but removed to another location for safekeeping.

• Former Jubilee Institute for the Blind, 1907 Edward Bartley architect, Parnell Road, now Parnell Public Library.

• Olympic Swimming Pool 1939, N.F Alcock borough engineer, Parnell Road. heavily altered, now covered by a cinema and car park.

[edit] References

• The Heart of Colonial Auckland, 1865-1910. Terence Hodgson. Random Century NZ Ltd 1992.
• Colonial Architecture In New Zealand. John Stacpoole. A.H & A.W Reed 1976
• Decently And In Order, The Centennial History of the Auckland City Council. G.W.A Bush. Collins 1971.
• Auckland Through A Victorian Lens. William Main. Millwood Press 1977.
• The Changing Face Of Mount Eden. Faye M. Angelo. Mount Eden Borough Council. 1989.
• Newmarket Borough Council Centenary 1885-1985, Kevin Male. Newmarket Borough Council 1985.
• Newmarket, Lost and Found. Dinah Holman. Newmarket Business Association. Bush Press Of New Zealand 2001.

[edit] External links

• Newmarket Business Association