Collapse

We're All Go. Going to Ruins.

One of the downsides of market collapses is the scars on the city; this used to be the old Wellington market building; while it had faded from its hey-day, it was still worth nipping into. Predictably enough it was swept up by the wave of apartment madness, scheduled for demolition, to be converted into yet another pile of generic apartments.

Had the international financial and property markets collapsed 3 months earlier, that would be the end of the story; instead, they did so in time for the builders to demolish the building, leaving only the foodcourt mural as a remnant of what once existed, along with hopelessly optimistic claims of continued liquidity and activity.

When I moved to Wellington the most obvious mark of the '87 market crash was on Courtney Place, where a vast, gravelled wasteland interrupted the main strip, testimony to a failed development; when I started working at Wellington Newspapers I was next to an ugly carpark whose upper deck was sprinkled with thick concrete columns, a mute testimony to the failure of another building project—this time after the basement had been completed.

I'm assuming this rubble will become another of the scars left by this round of collapses.