Where Is The City's Town Hall?

Radio Record, 11 March 1938, Page 42

Where Is The City's Town Hall?

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E.R.

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FOR years the musicians of Christchurch have been crying for a town hall. The city certainly has its concert chamber, occupied for the greater part of the year for talkie purposes, and possessing the "civic organ,’ but it is in no sense a "town hall." Periodically the discussion is revived and, as Christchurch is notable for its fondness for discussions, there's a tremendous amount of chat, with very little doing in a concrete way. Two or three years ago a citizen revived the old outcry, ‘‘We want a town hall," and the newspapers were nearly driven to fitting their pages with elastic sides to accommodate the correspondence and debates at various meetings. The project got no further, because someone said that Victoria Square would be the ideal place, while somebody else voted for Hagley Park, and someone else still for the Botanical Gardens, ‘ The smoke of battle blew away, and nothing was héard until the other day, when the Christchurch Harmonic Society-one of the strongest musical bodies in the province-had a word or two to say about it. One member declared that from a civic and cultural point of view, Christchurch was the poorer for being ‘without a town hall, and his view was shared by all members. Compared with Auckland, Wellington, and Dunedin, Christchurch, they said, is positively poverty-stricken in the matter of buildings acoustically sound. . Curiously enough, as an instance, the choir’s most successfui concerts were given in Wellington and Dunedin, while Christchurch performances were handicapped for want of a suitable hall. Several musicians interviewed last week by the "Record’s" Christchurch reporter, supported the views of the Harmonie Society’s speakers, some declaring with despair that not until "some very wealthy and public-spirited citizen found his bank balance getting him down, would the city achieve its musical desire. And that’s how things are at present. le