The woman who read Auckland
Janet McAllister visits Te Atatu and Pt Chevalier libraries
It is a truth locally lamented that the shopping centres of Te Atatu and Point Chevalier ignore the good fortune of their perches on Waitemata peninsulas and pretend they’re nowhere near the beach. Still! They have other drawcards in the heat: libraries.
It’s true the outsize metal-gauze flowers dominating the Te Atatu Peninsula Library entrance look like dusty doilies. But, sizzling attractively, this pataka korero opens its side-doors right on to a playground in lovely tree-blessed Jack Pringle Park (the name honours a local copper even if it makes me think of chippies).
I love that you can go to the library and read a book, lying on the grass. So does the Bike Te Atatu group, it seems; they often meet on the library deck to head off on adventures such as “Bikes & Beers” rides.
Having knocked its 1970 predecessor off its land, the 2014 library is one big, high-ceilinged glass rectangle: light, airy and (most importantly) air-conditioned. Inside the entrance, the local Local Board is consulting creatively: you put a sticker where your opinion is, and who can resist a sticker? Do you want a new public pool? The “yes” column is winning: seven sticky red dots to zero. Of course; the queues at West Wave are atrocious.
Other items of interest: a washing line of tamariki-made glitter pants for Captain Underpants; a YA book called Evil Librarian (“He’s young. He’s hot. He’s also evil.”); posters advertising the library’s regular free te reo Maori practice sessions — a brilliant idea — every Thursday, 6pm. A shelf holds not one, not two but three copies of Can You Tolerate This?, Ashleigh Young’s US$165,000-winning essay collection. Could the Herald’s Steve Braunias, aka The Spinoff’s books editor and early Young champion be responsible? He’s a local hero after all; helping to put Te Atatu On The Map.
(Interestingly, the name “Te Atatu” is only about 110 years old; it means “the time just after dawn” due to the peninsula’s eastward harbour views. The area’s traditional name is “Orukuwai”, named for a Te Kawerau-a-Maki ancestor.)
Meanwhile, across the causeway in Point Chevalier (formerly Point Bunbury, a fabulous Wildean handle, now more disappointingly named for a soldier), the shopping centre is surprisingly shabby for a Prime Minister-worthy gentrified suburb. Still, the “town square” outside the library has recently been zhushed up.
Feminist hero Ellen Melville opened the first library here in 1926, out of Remuera library leftovers (noblesse oblige and all that). Sixty years later, feminist hero Dame Cath Tizard opened the current building, which offers slightly quirky 80s bombast, all diagonals and arches. Inside it’s cosy. The kids section contains a 1970s throwback: a sunken conversation pit, kitted out with flat round cushions, perfect for toddler naps. The teens get a nicely discreet and discrete alcove, with a view of the grand Ambassador Theatre, and also of a public-seat public-service mural painted by Western Springs College students: “Don’t melt your home.”
This summer, that command seemed impossible. Escape the melt: bunbury to your library instead.