Dominion Road Stories
Helga Arlington, member, Albert-Eden Local Board
All of us have a Dominion Road story, it seems. My grandparents had a shoe shop on the corner with Balmoral Road in the 1920s – what’s your Dominion Road story?
When I realised that the Auckland Theatre Company was planning an Auckland Festival event and the Board was about to record people’s stories about their Dominion Road memories, I talked to the two about a shared event. The City Vision-led Albert-Eden Board funded Auckland Libraries to interview twenty Dominion Road shopkeepers, and a printed version of their stories is on their site
ATC performed three plays in venues around the Balmoral Road intersection, and arranged the wonderful Walk, Eat, Talk event. Dozens of people came to the War Memorial Hall and wrote their stories on postcards, some of which are now on the Auckland Libraries’ website.
There’ll be another chance to record your story during the Heritage Festival, Saturday 28 September until Sunday 13 October 2013 – and the first chance to hear some of Dominion Road’s voices – at the Albert- Eden Local Board’s office at 135 Dominion Road.
Dominion Road Stories is a great example of what a local board can achieve, with clever collaboration, the intention to focus on the local community, and a very modest budget.
And next year, 2014, Dominion Road will start to receive its long, long awaited upgrade. That’s a whole other story.