Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Christchurch - Then & Now

THEN: When the Warren & Mahoney-designed apartment building, The Establishment opened on Christchurch's Victoria Street a few years back (I believe it was about six years ago), it was quite the place and it's spacious, elegant apartments were sought after. And who wouldn't have wanted to live in Victoria Street then? It was close to the inner city and filled with cafes, bars, restaurants and boutique shopping, and just a short walk from Hagley Park.
NOW: This is what it had become last Friday. By now, it will be even more diminished.
Of all the churches I had photographed in Christchurch BEFORE the September 2010 7.1 earthquake, St Luke's in the City sadly wasn't one of them. They lost a lot of stonework in that event but they valiantly kept their signs out, welcoming in the desperate and disenfranchised.
Its a different story NOW!
This is the last lonely reminder of the once hefty stone building.
NOW reduced to a pile of concrete rubble, a lonely spire and a single roof gable cast adrift on a dirty demolition site.

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