K’Rd is dead. Long live K’Rd.
A version of this essay originally appeared on Elsewhere.co.nz.
‘K’Road’s colour under threat of whitewash,’ says the headline - but the red lights are already turning off. The Pink Pussy Cat is now an immigration consultancy and the Pleasure Chest signs have been sold on Trademe. Saint Kevin’s Arcade - the grand, Neo-Greek building that’s home to grungy music venues, a leather repair business, a vegan shop, a clutch of ever-changing second hand stores and the iconic Alleluya Cafe - has been bought by a former Shortland Street actor. Rumour says the actor made his fortune in Grey Lynn, where the last of the blue and yellow villas have been painted beige.
‘K’Road’s colour under threat of whitewash,’ says the headline - but the red lights are already turning off. The Pink Pussy Cat is now an immigration consultancy and the Pleasure Chest signs have been sold on Trademe. Saint Kevin’s Arcade - the grand, Neo-Greek building that’s home to grungy music venues, a leather repair business, a vegan shop, a clutch of ever-changing second hand stores and the iconic Alleluya Cafe - has been bought by a former Shortland Street actor. Rumour says the actor made his fortune in Grey Lynn, where the last of the blue and yellow villas have been painted beige.
A pre-European travel route, Karangahape Road is the oldest street in Auckland – and the most notorious in the country. Today it’s a kilometre of ‘anything goes’ that connects staid Queen Street and moneyed Ponsonby. One end finishes with leafy Symonds Street Cemetery and the other morphs into bustling Great North Road. Between these extremes, poets, street workers, street artists, fine artists, rough sleepers, drug addicts, latte sippers, drag queens, musicians and the people who love them brush up against each other during colourful days and hedonistic nights.
K’Road wasn’t always such a shady lady. From the late 1800s to the 1960s it was the place to be, and people came from far and wide to shop in the street’s stylish department stores. Rendells opened in 1911, and in 1926 George Courts Department Store and Saint Kevin’s Arcade joined the street. Glamorous lighting illuminated late night shoppers, and revellers had an abundance of nearby cinemas and dance halls to choose from.
But in the 1960s K’Road’s fortunes fell and she was forced to lower her knickers in order to make a buck. The construction of the inner-city motorway system required the removal of 15,000 nearby homes and the displacement of over 50,000 residents, and new shopping malls lured customers into the suburbs. K’Road’s shops started to close, and ‘King of the g-string’ Rainton Hastie moved in. His iconic Pink Pussy Cat Club opened in 1963, and the street was filled with the roar of his pink Cadillacs and the lure of his dirty dancers. This new permissiveness opened the doors for LBGTQI culture to dance through. New Zealand’s first lesbian social club opened on the street, followed by other gay venues such as Legends, Staircase and Urge Bar.
K’Road wasn’t always such a shady lady. From the late 1800s to the 1960s it was the place to be, and people came from far and wide to shop in the street’s stylish department stores. Rendells opened in 1911, and in 1926 George Courts Department Store and Saint Kevin’s Arcade joined the street. Glamorous lighting illuminated late night shoppers, and revellers had an abundance of nearby cinemas and dance halls to choose from.
But in the 1960s K’Road’s fortunes fell and she was forced to lower her knickers in order to make a buck. The construction of the inner-city motorway system required the removal of 15,000 nearby homes and the displacement of over 50,000 residents, and new shopping malls lured customers into the suburbs. K’Road’s shops started to close, and ‘King of the g-string’ Rainton Hastie moved in. His iconic Pink Pussy Cat Club opened in 1963, and the street was filled with the roar of his pink Cadillacs and the lure of his dirty dancers. This new permissiveness opened the doors for LBGTQI culture to dance through. New Zealand’s first lesbian social club opened on the street, followed by other gay venues such as Legends, Staircase and Urge Bar.
When I met K’Road in 1999 it was love at first sight. I’d just moved to Auckland and the city seemed big, brash and unfriendly. Walking along K’Road felt like walking into wonderful new country. The air was thick with the aromas of frying food, coffee, stale sweat, clove cigarettes, vomit and Nag Champa incense. The street’s seedier elements made it a safe haven for anyone creative or different.
I bought bright saris from the Indian store and hung them in the windows of my curtainless flat (the one where grass grew between the floorboards in the kitchen). I experimented with glorious green eye shadow from (the by now, rather downmarket) Rendells. I got stuck inside a 1960s dress in the Salvation Army store and had to be rescued by a shop assistant. Back then Brazil Café operated from the old Mercury Theatre foyer, and that’s where you went if you wanted a coffee that felt like a punch in the face. We’d scale the terrifyingly steep ladder to get to the old bus seats upstairs, and watch cockroaches scuttle across the walls as we ate bagels studded with fat capers. In the evenings we sang karaoke at Kamo alongside tall and gorgeous drag queens.
I got a job working in one of the vintage stores in Saint Kevin’s Arcade, and made savvy purchases of sequinned gowns, spray-on pants or cowboy boots almost every week. Our customers included students, stylists and thieves. One Saturday someone ripped an American bomber jacket from my hands and ran down the steps into Myers Park with it. I chased after them with a broom, but I didn’t get it back. Arriving on K’Road on weekend mornings, I’d often cross paths with people who were still wrapped up in the night before. Cleaning up puddles of urine outside the store was an unsavoury morning ritual, but just part of the deal.
I bought bright saris from the Indian store and hung them in the windows of my curtainless flat (the one where grass grew between the floorboards in the kitchen). I experimented with glorious green eye shadow from (the by now, rather downmarket) Rendells. I got stuck inside a 1960s dress in the Salvation Army store and had to be rescued by a shop assistant. Back then Brazil Café operated from the old Mercury Theatre foyer, and that’s where you went if you wanted a coffee that felt like a punch in the face. We’d scale the terrifyingly steep ladder to get to the old bus seats upstairs, and watch cockroaches scuttle across the walls as we ate bagels studded with fat capers. In the evenings we sang karaoke at Kamo alongside tall and gorgeous drag queens.
I got a job working in one of the vintage stores in Saint Kevin’s Arcade, and made savvy purchases of sequinned gowns, spray-on pants or cowboy boots almost every week. Our customers included students, stylists and thieves. One Saturday someone ripped an American bomber jacket from my hands and ran down the steps into Myers Park with it. I chased after them with a broom, but I didn’t get it back. Arriving on K’Road on weekend mornings, I’d often cross paths with people who were still wrapped up in the night before. Cleaning up puddles of urine outside the store was an unsavoury morning ritual, but just part of the deal.
My sister worked in the leather store further down the arcade. She and I started a band and we spent many evenings walking up and down K’Road with a bucket of homemade flour and water glue pasting up gig posters. Other evenings were spent as performers and audience members at venues like The Naval and Family, The Thirsty Dog, Edens Bar and The Wine Cellar. But K’Road isn’t just about rock and roll - it’s also a place of Chinese supermarkets, alternative therapies, Rainbow Youth, hip hop and tattoo parlours. It’s a place where you can attend a talk or a festival, take a juggling or life drawing class, and rub shoulders with the beautiful and the damned.
This is the allure of K’Road in 2015 – but she’s about to reinvent herself once again. The street that’s seen everything is about to undergo some radical surgery – including a full-body lift and a heart transplant. The City Rail Link – a project designed to improve Auckland’s public transport network – is kicking into gear, and a new train station on K’Road will flood the street with commuters. More housing options in the area are proposed, and the street seems set to morph back into the society lady she was in the first half of last century.
But as she slides under the anaesthetic, her heartrate slows. Today, many of the shops in Saint Kevin’s Arcade are closed. Tenants have been moved on, and signs that say ‘more magic is on its way’ hang in the empty windows. The arcade has been owned by various people of the years, but for decades its patron saint has been Peter Hawkesby, who runs Alelluya Café. Peter makes a divine Jewish ginger cake, has supported countless creative people in a myriad of different ways, and once admonished me for setting a bad example because I was pictured smoking a cigarillo in my band’s promotion photos. Sometime between now and Christmas, Alelluya will also close.
K’Road is dead. Long live K’Road.
This is the allure of K’Road in 2015 – but she’s about to reinvent herself once again. The street that’s seen everything is about to undergo some radical surgery – including a full-body lift and a heart transplant. The City Rail Link – a project designed to improve Auckland’s public transport network – is kicking into gear, and a new train station on K’Road will flood the street with commuters. More housing options in the area are proposed, and the street seems set to morph back into the society lady she was in the first half of last century.
But as she slides under the anaesthetic, her heartrate slows. Today, many of the shops in Saint Kevin’s Arcade are closed. Tenants have been moved on, and signs that say ‘more magic is on its way’ hang in the empty windows. The arcade has been owned by various people of the years, but for decades its patron saint has been Peter Hawkesby, who runs Alelluya Café. Peter makes a divine Jewish ginger cake, has supported countless creative people in a myriad of different ways, and once admonished me for setting a bad example because I was pictured smoking a cigarillo in my band’s promotion photos. Sometime between now and Christmas, Alelluya will also close.
K’Road is dead. Long live K’Road.