DUNEDIN - a potrait of today and yesterday

From the "one man band" that is Grantham House Publishing comes another absolutely fascinating book of before and after photographs,(his previous one was Christchurch - a portrait of yesterdays).
This latest title gives an insight into Dunedin through the decades: the imposing building facades, hills that rise steeply from the harbour centre, a look back at the city streets showing a city that has largely been saved from the demolition ball of the 1950s and 1960s.  Like San Francisco, Dunedin’s little cable cars once climbed the hills right up to the stars!

Dunedin, at the head of the Otago harbour, is a city of dignified charm with elegant Edwardian and Victorian stone, brick and concrete buildings, majestic cathedrals and churches Private residences with towers and turrets of architectural splendour, cast iron lacework balustrades, ornamental fretwork and finials; old villas and cottages. The city was founded on gold discoveries in Central Otago by sturdy Scottish stock and is known as the Edinburgh of the south. For a time in the 19th century it was the largest city in New Zealand and the commercial capital of the country.  Home to New Zealand’s first university, the first medical school and teachers’ college, it is a university town with a student population of about 20,000.

Check out these photos for a brief taste of the book:

Author/photographer/publisher/transport historian Graham Stewart took these two shots 60 years apart !

Lower photo above - A  cable car heading for the Exchange, leaves the Town Belt private right-of-way in the days when many businessmen used the frequent cable car service to travel home for lunch. Gripmen on both cars would sound their bells when passing another cable car. The sound of their bells warned passengers standing on the outside that a cable car travelling in the opposite direction was  about to pass.

Upper photo above - The top of Rattray Street today. The Roslyn cable car ran through a cutting in the Town Belt, under  a wooden bridge in Queens Drive, all long gone.  

Lower photo - the author with the crew of the Roslyn cable car #93 shortly before the service closed in October 1951, and in upper pic the author standing alongside the same cable car now restored outside the Cableways Tavern in Kaikorai Valley, Dunedin.


Grantham House Publishing - RRP $30.00
www.granthamhouse.co.nz