NZ Visual Diary - entry 192
K Road entrance, the former Prince Edward Cinema
It was the staircase . . . and yes, the vaulted ceiling, the chandelier and the strikingly elegant Art Deco door on the right.
I knew that this Indian restaurant at 256 Karangahape Road was only the latest commercial reincarnation of a storied building, now known as the Norman Ng Building.
The history the building is intertwined with that of the Mercury Theatre on Mercury Lane:
[The Mercury Theatre] was built in 1910 by the architect Edward Bartley and is the oldest surviving theatre in Auckland. Built in the Edwardian Baroque style, it was initially known as the Kings Theatre. On being converted into [the Prince Edward] cinema in 1926, a new entrance was built on Karangahape Road.1
It is the Neo-Greek entrance, built in 1926 on K Road for the newly named Prince Edward Cinema, that is pictured in this entry’s image.
The Norman Ng building has served numerous purposes over the past hundred years: cinema entrance, restaurant location and, for more than three decades from 1959, a fruit market owned by Norman Ng.
A Facebook page dedicated to the former Prince Edward Cinema and the Brazil Cafe, which occupied the building from 1994-2008, has a lovely photo collection of the building’s many interior faces.2
Wikipedia entry: Mercury Theatre, Auckland <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_Theatre,_Auckland>
Facebook | the former Prince Edward Cinema <https://www.facebook.com/KRoadNZ/posts/the-former-prince-edward-cinema-known-to-most-people-as-brazil-cafe/10153723655514574/>