Thursday, November 19, 2015

Adventures in street naming ...



... or, things going a bit loopy in Avondale ...

The image is from c.1919, and is of the house that was at 1 Trent Street in Avondale, since removed for a 33 unit development.

Trent Street has always been a small street. It may even be Avondale's smallest. It started out as the end of Station Road (today the northern part of Blockhouse Bay Road) because it curved down towards what used to be a level crossing across the railway tracks, pre 1915.

From the 1930s or so, it was renamed Trent Street (out of a list of place names Auckland City Council chose from at the time).

So -- basically there were only ever two houses in the street.

Now, there's just one.

I suppose, because of the one single remaining house in Trent Street, Auckland Council didn't want to consider just renumbering that property so that the loop road could be considered Trent Street as well, instead of the developer's choice of Whakawhiti Loop. A 33-unit street coming off the end of a tiny street with just one house on it.

Or -- rename Trent Street as Whakawhiti Loop, and ask the owner of the one house if they're okay with that.

No -- the Whau Local Board last month voted to approve a 33-unit loop coming off our tiniest street to have its own name.

One for the (future) history books, I guess ...

2 comments:

  1. A bit off topic but given there are rail lines in your post, I heard rumours of a light rail system or line for Auckland. Just guessing that the small loop line has not been very successful.

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