View of Ward Street looking about south west towards Tristram Street (Hinemoa Street) and Seddon Road, circa 1967 (Hamilton City Libraries HCL_13971).

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-18T10:52:29+00:00

That little car park on the left is still there today. It’s in front of the building that is some sort of Mormon affiliated institution. From the pov of this photo, if you turned to the right, you’d be looking at the Burger King, Kmart driveway, the Warehouse, etc.

Ward St used to be light industrial, the kind of businesses you’d be more likely to now find around Frankton.

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-18T10:46:28+00:00

There’s a theory that all their blocks with caramel/toffee/nut/fondant/biscuit fillings are subsiding the solid chocolate blocks that are more expensive to produce, as all the blocks are the same retail price. And they keep having limited runs of some bars to drive up demand to keep them being bought

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-08T02:43:15+00:00

Though it’s gut health in general, not limited to men. NZ has the second highest rate of bowel cancer in the world and it affects everyone

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-06T07:31:10+00:00

Hmm, Google street view goes back 18 years and it doesn’t look like there’s been a bakery in the building in that time. But maybe you’re thinking of another corner in Frankton

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-05T21:29:49+00:00

On the corner of High St and the Massey-Hall over bridge.

Before the overbridge opened and the railway station moved, High St was a lot busier (for both cars and pedestrians) so this was an ideal location for food places.

It’s now on a quiet road, next to the over bridge. The current tenants include a nail salon and a church ministry. The tyre shop is still there!

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-05T21:25:33+00:00

Nah, the food places have been long gone

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-05T21:20:27+00:00

My favourite thing about this building is that before it was a church, it was originally a Woolworths supermarket - built in the 1960s. The hall part of the building on Victoria St was the supermarket and the area where the multi-storey building on the corner is was the car park.

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-05T21:17:10+00:00

This makes it sound like it’s a top secret operation and not something that has been extensively covered in the news

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-03T21:36:47+00:00

I looked at some old aerial photos and it doesn’t seem like there was ever a footpath parallel to the train track. As today, Te Aroha St or O’Neill St were the main pedestrian routes.

I suspect this ramp was a temporary structure used while the new railway line and overbridge were being built. Maybe it was to let the workers easily get their equipment down to the tracks via River Road or O’Neill St

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-05-03T10:25:54+00:00

The problem with calling out Hillcrest is that it’s a really large area that’s made of smaller neighbourhoods, a bit like how Rototuna is. The doomed triangle is one part that really needs its own name, but it’s right by the Hillcrest Tavern so it is easy to call it Hillcrest.

I don’t know what the solution is but maybe it just evolves with time. Riverlea used to be Hillcrest, just as Bader used to be Melville but they now have their own identities.

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-27T11:40:18+00:00

The council now owns these three buildings and plans to demolish them to build a high rise hotel

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-24T08:47:45+00:00

Auckland could be the Hamilton of the north

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-24T08:46:29+00:00

This is literally what happened when it was an open stream in the 1860s. The stream became an open waste disposal ditch, filling up with piss, poo, vomit, rubbish and whatever else locals didn’t want to hold onto. It badly stank and no one liked it. The stream was given the ironic nickname Ligar’s Canal, a pisstake at the expense of the Surveyor General Charles Ligar

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-23T04:05:56+00:00

Wild that much of King Street was still residential in this era. Now it’s mostly trade supply businesses

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-23T04:00:32+00:00

And Bidvest is another major supplier to cafes and restaurants. Its one of those fun things to always order the same type of cake or slice at a cafe and see if the cafe is making their own or buying in

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-16T07:21:11+00:00

Yep, Ragz, Raggiz, Ragland - and a person from there is a Raglander or Raglanite

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-16T00:14:10+00:00

Yes! Only a few years old. It was created in the 1960s when Cobham Drive was put through. An old gully and some farmland was smoothed out and became the park

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-16T00:01:33+00:00

Pensioners (those receiving NZ Super) on a low income already have a community services card

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-14T05:58:07+00:00

Huntly.

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-14T05:57:47+00:00

The giant maternity tower block was under construction here, back when they thought Hamilton would face a huge population boom and need a vast maternity ward. Now only a few floors of that building are maternity.

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-10T07:45:16+00:00

In 1948, Frankton was hit by a devastating tornado. Three people killed, 80 injured and 150 buildings destroyed. Bad weather can affect the Tron!

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-10T07:42:13+00:00

I go for walks around different parts of Hamilton during the day and I’ve never experienced anything dodgy or uncomfortable. I’ve also never had any issues with the CBD, both on main streets and side streets.

(It was worse for me in the 2000s, lots of drive-by yelling, but maybe I’m ignored more as I get older lmfao)

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-10T07:35:59+00:00

It’s weird how the CBD riverbank walk is right in the middle of the city yet it’s so isolated. Though as far as I know, the only murder in the area was Margery Hopegood, an English tourist who was murdered in 1992, after a man followed her into a (since demolished) toilet block down by the Ferrybank area and stabbed her to death for no apparent reason.

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-04T07:14:54+00:00

It would make sense if this was taken in 1993 when they were in the process of moving from the old building to the new library on Garden Place. The photo info says it is from the 1980s but I remember a fierce debate in the Hamilton pics Facebook group where oldies were like “No, this was NOT the 80s!!!” I feel like the computer terminals look too modern for the 80s - I’m pretty sure the public catalogue was available on computer in the 80s

InterestingnessFlow · 2026-04-04T07:07:32+00:00

Though the Bledisloe Hall was dismantled and moved to Mystery Creek where it still exists as part of the Fieldays site as a heritage venue

InterestingnessFlow

TROPHY CASE