Colombo St: from end to end
Drag queens, a whole goat and a pint of Guinness in one stretch of road. Reporter Lee Kenny – a visitor from Britain – travelled the length of Christchurch’s Colombo St by scooter, meeting the people who live and work there along the way.
There can be few roads anywhere quite like Colombo St.
The bustling byway connects Christchurch city centre to the suburbs in the north and the Port Hills to the south.
But it’s the street’s diversity that makes it so different.
As well as thousands of homes and businesses, it boasts schools, cinemas, shopping malls and supermarkets.
There is a police station, theatre, libraries, hotels, gyms, fast-food, bars, churches, a chapel, and a pub at either end.
It crosses two rivers and a railway before dipping under a flyover and past a busy bus station and a historic cathedral – it’s more like a small city than a street.
Although famous (or infamous) for the ‘‘Colombo Run’’ – where boy racers would cruise up and down in their souped-up cars – its origins are far more sedate.
Colombo St was named by surveyors Joseph Thomas and Edward Jollie in 1850 after a colonial Anglican diocese in Ceylon, now modern-day Sri Lanka.
The street didn’t always stretch across the city from hills to suburbs.
In the original 1850 plan, Colombo St ran only a few blocks from Salisbury St in the north to St Asaph St in the south.
Beyond Moorhouse Ave to the south, it became Colombo Rd, while north of Bealey Ave it was Colombo Rd North. Addison St, which ran from Brougham to Huxley streets in the south, became part of Colombo St in 1892.
The 7-kilometre street begins in leafy Cashmere at the foot of the Port Hills and straddles the suburbs of Beckenham and Somerfield.
It passes through Sydenham, Cathedral Square and the residential neighbourhoods of Edgeware and St Albans beyond.
My aim was to travel the length of Colombo St, to explore its distinct communities and speak to the people who live and work there.
I locate a Lime scooter and begin at Protocol pub at the foot of Dyers Pass Rd. It is a grey, cloudy morning and the rush-hour traffic has just begun to ease.
My first stop is Cashmere Cuisine, a European-style delicatessen at number 18 Colombo St.
I meet butcher Kevin Martin, who is originally from South Africa. He’s been there about 18 months and says they have ‘‘all sorts coming in’’.
‘‘We have stay-at-home-mums with young kids, business people coming in after work or during lunchtimes and elderly people throughout the day. It’s good, you can develop a good relationship.
‘‘There’s been a butchery here for a long time. Some of our older customers have been coming here for 40 or 50 years.’’
Back on the scooter, I zip past South Christchurch Library, sleek and modern on a bend in the Heathcote River. The 2003 building is a recent public commission by Christchurch architecture firm Warren and Mahoney.
Further along Colombo St, this time nestled on a bend in the Avon River, stands one of the firm’s first public commissions – the Town Hall, which is being restored and refurbished for the new city.
Crossing the Heathcote River I stop for a chat with Sacha Coogan, a barista at Deja Brew. She says she appreciates the diversity of the street. ‘‘We see lots of walkers, bikers. ‘‘It’s a really nice area. ‘‘Everyone’s lovely, very kind. ‘‘There’s a Facebook community group where people share a lot of things.’’
The pop-up coffee shop is outside Canterbury Children’s Theatre in the old Malthouse building.
The three-storey warehouse, which dates back to 1867, is the oldest and only stand-alone malthouse remaining in New Zealand. It was once a key part of the local beer brewing industry but ceased to be a maltworks in 1954.
It was briefly a seed store and then a builder’s yard, before becoming a theatre in 1964.
The building is one of few surviving stone buildings in Christchurch, partly because it was earthquake strengthened in the 1990s.
Local history enthusiast Alan Wills says it may be the oldest stone building left on Colombo St.
When it was built, the surrounding area was all fields.
‘‘It’s two years older than the cathedral,’’ he says.
I leave Alan to enjoy his coffee and as I reach the intersection of Tennyson St, the tree-lined pavements give over to the shopfronts of local businesses.
Nestled around the dominant Christchurch South police station is a cluster of bars and restaurants.
A few blocks further north is Sydenham – a suburb transformed by the city’s quakes in 2010 and 2011. It lost many of its historic and charming brick buildings but provided a home for many cafes and shops displaced from the city centre. The suburb has also become a vibrant hub for the city’s thriving street art scene.
Many of the local businesses on this stretch of Colombo St are run by the city’s new migrant communities.
Jawad Rabani works at Maihan Supermarket and Halal Meat at 303 Colombo St.
It is one of a number of international stores along the street and specialises in koftas and hogget flaps – you can even buy a whole goat.
Jawad’s customers hail from across the globe.
‘‘We have Asian people, Middle Eastern people, Somalis, Arabs. We also have tourists from China, England. Many places,’’ he says.
He moved from Afghanistan in 2003 and opened the business 10 years later.
‘‘I like it here, it’s a nice community.
‘‘It’s a really wonderful street.’’ There is also a growing LGBTQI community in the area, according to Ben Knox, who lives in Colombo St in Sydenham and works at the Ballantynes department store in the city centre.
‘‘There are quite a few of us coming to live in this area, which is quite cool,’’ he says.
‘‘It is quite a friendly neighbourhood and we are friendly with the neighbours. We have quite a few parties and we always invite the neighbours.’’
Knox is a drag artist in his spare time, dancing and lip syncing under the alter ego Bella Bloom. I soon leave Sydenham behind. Although my Lime Scooter struggles slightly to get up and over the railway flyover, I cruise over Moorhouse Ave, and inside the famed four avenues where the art deco New City Hotel catches my eye.
The stylish 1930s building wraps around Colombo and Bath streets like a bespoke suit. And although it now offers budget accommodation, it was once a high-end hotel with fine-dining and silver service.
New City Hotel may be close to its centenary year but as I near the city centre, much of Colombo St is shiny and new with further developments, like the newly restored Town Hall and a new convention centre, expected in 2019.
The $50 million Hoyts EntX Complex opened its doors in September, while the $53 million bus exchange was completed in May 2015.
The city’s bold new $92 million public library, Tu¯ ranga, opened in October, drawing families and tourists to its gold facade.
The Crossing welcomed shoppers in September 2017 and the former Pagoda Court is being demolished to make way for Kathmandu’s new flagship store.
All these new developments have brought a touch of long missing bustle back to the post-quake city centre.
Ben Knox, who we met in Sydenham, has worked in Colombo St for the past 11 years and watched the city slowly come back to life.
‘‘I love working in the city. It is becoming more vibrant nowadays and a lot is popping up.
‘‘It is nice to have buildings around us again and have neighbours and more people coming into town.’’
I leave Colombo St briefly to scoot through Cathedral Square.
The weather is now bright and sunny but the area is eerily quiet.
The revitalisation of the square will be the final piece of the puzzle for the city centre. For now the cathedral and derelict former post office building are a reminder there is still a way to go.
I rejoin Colombo St and head north past Victoria Square before crossing Bealey Ave for the final leg of my jaunt.
The northern end of Colombo St could not be in sharper contrast to its cosmopolitan southern section.
While the Sydenham stretch is awash with coffee shops, microbreweries and sushi restaurants, the Edgeware end is quiet and residential.
I chat to Connie Trouten, who works at Maxwells Dry Cleaning, one of the few businesses along this section of the road.
She says she likes the area’s community feel.
‘‘It’s really quiet at this end of the street, it’s very family-oriented.
‘‘It’s a definitely a close-knit community around here.’’
Colombo St finally comes to an end at a T-junction with Edgeware Rd, in the heart of one of the many villages that make up the city’s suburbs.
My last stop is Bailie’s Bar at 1066 Colombo St, where I meet bartender Iona Betts.
Originally from Bradford in England, Betts is busy preparing for the lunchtime regulars to arrive.
Life in the St Albans end of Colombo St is more like living in a village, she says.
‘‘I know pretty much everybody who comes in here.
‘‘We have about eight people who sit at this area of the bar and I’m expected to know every drink.
‘‘We are kind of like a family in this square.
‘‘We’re really close to the other shops ... the grocery, bakery. It’s really nice.’’