NZ Visual Diary - entry 112

quintessentially K Road

For those who closely follow my blog <NZ Visual Diary>, it will come as no surprise that I have returned (yet again) to Karangahape Road, or more simply K Road.

At the south end of Auckland Central, K Road has a storied history in the business and cultural lore of Auckland. In entry 53 on the St Kevin’s Arcade building, I chronicle the history of K Road as the high fashion centre of an earlier Auckland.

Today, K Road is way left of cool. Indeed, a high profile advertising campaign (see entry 49) commissioned in the past year by the K Road business district celebrates the street’s quirky chic. In a brilliant twist on bad online reviews left by people for whom K Road’s quirkiness was off-putting, the campaign valorises bad reviews as evidence of the street’s idiosyncratic, and easily misunderstood, charm.

To those feckless reviewers, I say: “Go back to your suburban malls.” I’m anchored at K Street, and I have lots of images to illustrate the source of such affection. I plan to share many of those photographs in future posts. As a marker for that project, I offer the image reproduced here.