Queen Street - The Waihorotiu Stream

I've heard many references and stories about how Queen Street used to be an old stream. The tiles on Queen St are oftened reminders of this stream. So I decided to find out a bit more about it...


The Waihorutiu Stream (or sometimes Wai Horotiu Stream) also refered to as the 'Queen Street River', is a former stream in the downtown region of Auckland City, New Zealand, which has long since been covered over and made to disappear by the increasing urbanisation of the area. Originally, it was an open strem starting out in a gully before flowing through a swampy area and then down the centre of what was to become Queen St.Water percolating through the soil under Myers Park still runs into the old sewers under Queen Street to the sea, discharging under the Ferry Building.

Myers Park, Auckland

Video : http://www.qwiki.com/q/#!/Waihorotiu_Stream  

HISTORY: 


[When Hobson, the Lieutenant Governor of New Zealand, visited the Waitemata, what is now Queen Street valley was nothing more than a fern covered swamp. But it was a swamp that Hobson saw potential in - describing the harbour as being the "best harbour on the whole of the western coast of New Zealand," and he chose Auckland as the site for the country's capital


The Wai Horotiu was the original stream that drained the Queen Street valley. It was channelled and named the Ligar Canal before it was culverted beneath the pavements. As a reference to this once-pristine stream, white tile motifs will be placed in the new basalt paving to denote the whitebait that once made the creek their home.]


http://www.aucklandcity.govt.nz/council/projects/cbdproject/queensthistory.asp

The Waihorotiu Stream - now channeled into brick sewers underneath Queen Street done in the 19th C.

 

Aotea Square was originally the location of a swamp fed and drained by the Waihorotiu Stream. The stream was turned into an open sewer canal and eventually bricked over and the swampy area drained. A three-story underground parking garage accessible from Mayoral Drive and Greys Avenue was constructed in the 1970s.


The sculpture that has remained in Aotea even after its renovation includes Hone Tuwhare's (1922-2008) haiku which was changed slightly when used in an Auckland City Council sculpture project on the footpath just up from the Civic Theatre, to celebrate the (now) hidden Wai Horotiu, Queen Street's stream turned into brick-lined sewer in the 19th century. (http://timespanner.blogspot.com/2010/10/adding-colour-to-auckland-gateway.html)


 In Maori mythology, the stream is the home of Horotiu, a local Taniwha (roughly speaking, a local nature spirit).