Once the only street in Auckland with a Māori name, Karangahape Rd is haunted by ghosts. Nisha Madhan walks through its storied history.
Listen to the story as it was told at The Watercooler storytelling night or read on.
You’re standing on Karangahape Road. You’re at the pedestrian crossing on the side of St Kevin’s Arcade. You’re facing a sign that says "To Myers Park".
You know this place. You live in this city.
Until the 1950s, this road was the only road in town with a Māori place name. It used to be a ridge, a track to get to the harbour. Now it’s famous for something else and it’s full of ghosts.
You turn left. You see four benches. You sit down on the third bench facing Iko Iko.
This is Margaret’s seat. You know Margaret. You know her well, even if you don’t realise it yet. Margaret sat on this seat every day for 30 years. She would catch the 703 from Parnell and arrive here at 9am sharp. This seat was her office. She’d buy a bottle of cheap Shiraz, a packet of Pall Mall Reds and sit here until 5pm. Then she’d catch the 703 back home.
Margaret hasn’t been seen here or heard of since 2011. But she haunts passers by everyday. Especially those who tried to give her a dollar instead of the cigarette she asked for.
“If I wanted a fucking dollar I would’ve asked for a fucking dollar.” If you were really lucky she’d just say, “Fuck off then.” Margaret was a charming lady.
Now this is David’s office. David is a poet:
My observational prowess is at a zenith.
I can tell with a quick glance most things,
the body language of the well to do,
the disaffected, the recently saddened,
the willful, the stupid, the crass and the inane.
if I don't want to be bothered, I just keep my head
down and do not make any eye contact,
I maintain a watchful eye out for shoes in the corner
of my peripheral vision, if they stop there for longer
than a few seconds, then I look up and say hello.
You stand up. You look left. You walk to the Leo O’Malley store.
You cross diagonally towards the hostel.
Margaret hasn’t been seen here or heard of since 2011. But she haunts passers by everyday.
You turn right and walk. Hollywood, White Elephant, Cash Out, Xpress Mart.
You stop outside two large wooden doors with a Business For Sale sign in the window.
You peek through the glass. You see the skylight in the back? It’s been there since the 1920s.
This place was once Brazil. In Brazil the people never slept. They sold space sticks and eggs and never smiled. In Brazil the coffee punched you in the eyes while the service kicked you in the guts. And no matter what, you always begged for more.
If you went into Brazil, went down the stairs at the back, past the kitchen and into the bathroom, you’d find a curtain. Behind that curtain is a big old door. If you opened that door, and walked through it, you’d end up under a glass dome.
This glass dome was once the Mercury Theatre.
You think about how many feet trampled through these doors and down those stairs to watch 12 shows a year for 24 years. You think about how many actors were hired to play Hamlet. You think about how many actors were hired to play the ghost of Hamlet’s father.
You imagine yourself in lights. You turn right and keep walking.
You hear a distant pulse pump out of a bar. This bar is not a bar. This bar is a reverie drawn with plum lip liner. Tomorrow it will be a pile of ash.
You walk the path of a million stilettos. You inhale a cubic metre of glitter.
When you reach East Street you walk down the hill towards the motorway.
This motorway was built in 1965. For this motorway to exist, an entire suburb of people were moved. Thousands of houses were demolished and a giant hole was dug for it.
You stop and look at the house on the corner. Inside this house are 250 miniature houses. Each one is sitting in its own black shoebox. Each box has a name and a number.
568A - Brian Kasslar - Fisherman. 2072 - Dr. Megan Jack - Physician. 34A - Gaylene Preston – Film Maker. 2062 Graham Oliver - Decent Bloke. 2089 - For Sale. 564 - Liz Hardwick Smith - Wonderful Woman Forever More.
Each house is a ghost of a house that once lived where the motorway now stands.
Underneath the house is a den. In this den are four 20-something males made entirely out of hair and takeaways. They are called New Gum Sarn.
You continue down the hill. You enter a car park and stop in front of the entrance to the New Gum Sarn Asian Food Supermarkets. You go inside. You see the game machines on the left? No one ever plays those. They’re ghost shells.
In Brazil the coffee punched you in the eyes while the service kicked you in the guts. And no matter what, you always begged for more.
Turn right. Walk up the stairs. Turn left. Walk up the stairs. You stop and look around. You hear a language that’s spoken all at once. A language that isn’t yours, or mine or even theirs. Pieces of English, Samoan, Tongan, Japanese, Chinese, Indian, Korean all mixed up and served to you in polystyrene.
You wonder for a moment what country you’re in.
You exit through the door between the Japanese place and the Chinese place.
You walk up the hill back to the corner of Mercury Lane.
There was talk that Margaret had been a surgeon, a lawyer, a teacher, a dancer, a model – even that she was masquerading in drag as a transsexual. In reality, she was none of these. Margaret was anything your imagination needed her to be.
You head back towards St Kevin’s Arcade.
You walk. You walk the call of Hape. The call of a demigod with a clubbed foot. You walk the call of the rejected. You walk the call of those who are left behind.
You cross the road and walk into the arcade around the stairs and into a café. A saint walks past you in a tweed jacket and puts a jug of water on a little table in front of the windows before disappearing. You pour yourself a glass of water.
You look at the people behind you reflected in the windows. You think about how many of them will be ghosts in 30 years’ time.
You follow the windows to the left. You see a picture of two people sitting on a seat on K Road. You see the woman on the right? That’s Margaret.
This is a place for city ghosts. Hipster ghosts, ghosts of buildings, the ghost of Warwick Broadhead. The ghosts of businessmen and landowners, the ghosts of awkward customers at sex shops. The ghosts of immigrants, of women who once were men. The ghosts of the homeless, sick and tired, the ghosts who don’t fit in to the mainstream.
If you smoke, you leave a cigarette on the ground for us.
You imagine yourself as a future ghost. Transparent. Watching. You think about whether anyone noticed you when you were alive. You don’t know that someone will put your picture up in the window of a café. You don’t know that hundreds attended your funeral.
You think about the people you’ll haunt when you’re a ghost. You think about where you want your ghost office to be.
You put the glass down. You walk past the future ghosts back to K Road.
You go home.
This story was originally told at The Watercooler, a monthly storytelling night held at The Basement Theatre. If you have a story to tell email thewatercoolernz@gmail.com or hit them up on Twitter or Facebook.
Illustration: Emile Holmewood of BloodBros.
This content is brought to you with funding support from NZ On Air.
