A Square for Auckland.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18364, 23 April 1925, Page 8

A Square for Auckland.

Monday saw the opening in Auckland of a municipal drive for a Civic Square. The proposal is to convert tho market square, a public endowment which has been occupied by private business premises, into a civic centre "calculated to benefit and adorn the "city." The Council has already approved of designs—approved of them, oddly enough, in advance of the ratepayers' approval of the necessary loan—for buildings to cost £300,000, and has cleared tho land on which theso aro to be erected. And now Sir James Gunson is devoting his last few days as Mayor to a series of meetings commending this bold scheme to the citizens. If they listen to him tho immediate financial result will be huge building loans, a heavy loss of revenuo by tho termination of leases, and tho payment of substantial sums for compensation for improvements. Yet nobody.seems to bo terrified by that thought. The Mayor 53 quito confident, and except for the criticism lovelled agaiust the Council's anticipation of the ratepayers' wishes, he is backed with equal confidence by tho Press. But in Christchurch tho Civic Centre exists—potentially, as we said the other day, the most attractive Centre in the Southern Hemisphere—and wc aro content to use it as a tramway shunting yard. When the suggestion is made that the Square should be used as the founders of the City intended us to. use it, the reply is that the abuse of it has oxistcd too long now to be redressed. Somo indeed thank God that the Pilgrims had the imagination to see that their descendants would one day ride in trams, and require an open space in which to manoeuvre them, and with those peoplo it is useless to argue. But there aro thousands who would restore the Square to its original use and dignity if they believed this to bo practicable, and theso at least will watch the Auckland campaign with interest, and iye trust with hope. •