ORIENTAL PARADE

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2867, 4 September 1916, Page 4

ORIENTAL PARADE

IMPROVEMENTS IN" HAND AStD PROJECTED. No other metropolis in Australasia is ablo to boast a finer residential marine parade so near town as Oriental Bay, is to Wellington. Tho bay ha 6 very gradually improved of late years, and the result of many appeals for the City Council to assist nature in taaking the bay creditable to the City is bearing fruit-. -A visit to tho bay at the presenf't-im'e would repay anyone interested in City improvement works. Under the direction of the City Engineer (Mr., W. H. Morton), the big concrete wall, finished with a stout galvanised pipe rail, has been completed as far cast as Hay Street, and one call form a very good idea of what Oriental Bay will look like in tho *uture. Opposito the plantation, hand< some concrete stops have been thrown out, so that it will be a simple matter, lor anj'one to reach the beach or water at'any time. These steps descend to the beach east and west, parallel with the wall from a platform or lauding that projects beachward on a level with tlis footpath. The entrance to the steps is indicated by huge square blocks of concrete, which in tinio will form tho base of handsome street lights, after the style of the Thames Embankment. Another set of steps will lead to tho beach from opposito the foot of Hay, Street.

A little further on, that small pro* montory of rocks which projects from the natural line of the beach, is:being used by the engineer as the site of an architectural feature tliat will help very materially to set the parade off. Projecting from the wall at this point is a large semi-circular trench, which has boon filled with conorete to form the foundation of a bandstand reserve, in which it is proposed to erect a bandstand, with a walk around it, and with garden seats placed close to the wall, which will be continued in the same formation all round the "bulge." For some time there has existed a' bandstand in front of the Central Firs Brigade Station. It ia never used for the purpose originally intended, and blocks the passage for a straight get ■away'for,tho 'lire engines. It is suggested "that this grandstand might be .adapted for tho site now being prepared in Oriental Bay, as tho existence of tho unused bandstand in its present awkward position is on©,of that curious anomalies which exist in every City.