Cursed places. You might be famil­iar with them. Places you walk into and it feels like there’s ghosts, places that are a bit spooky or a bit weird or send a chill up your spine. To put it more col­lo­qui­al­ly — bad vibes.

A place does­n’t have to be dilap­i­dat­ed to be cursed — I often find too-lit shop fronts and mean­ing­less fright­en­ing prod­ucts to be quite cursed for me — but a lot of cursed places are a bit fal­ly-aparty.

Via my Twit­ter account, I crowd-sourced a list of the most cursed places around Welling­ton. You can find that Twit­ter thread, and its colour com­men­tary here. I’ve also assem­bled the list into a Google map, so you too can go for a wan­der about Welling­ton’s weird-feel­ing and hid­den locales one day if you’re up for it.

Here are some of my high­lights, ranked. I’ve not includ­ed any cafes or shops and the like as I don’t want to be sued, but there are def­i­nite­ly plen­ty of them that have weird vibes. You’ll just have to hunt them out your­self.

Rintoul/Riddiford St cross­ing — New­town

(Pic­tured sup­plied by Kris.)

Why is this cursed? Who knows. But it is. Why does it take so long for the traf­fic light to go? Why are there so many roads to watch out for when cross­ing? Will you be hit by a bus while cross­ing? Prob­a­bly. It’s fright­en­ing, at least vague­ly.

2/10 — mild­ly cursed

Read­ing Cin­e­mas, Courte­nay Place


Robin Hood (the mas­sive movie poster still igno­min­ious­ly sta­pled to the build­ing) came out on Novem­ber 22 2018. Read­ing Cin­e­mas closed because of earth­quake dam­age on Jan­u­ary 5 2019. ‘Nuff said, real­ly.

3/10 — mild­ly cursed with a hint of rose-tint­ed nos­tal­gia. I miss the Gold Lounge more than I miss some of my friends.

Lob­ster Loos — Cus­tom­house Quay

Designed by archi­tect Bret Thurston and installed in 2011, these toi­lets are great to look at on the out­side but not so nice with­in. If you’re look­ing for a clean pub­lic toi­let, per­haps try those fur­ther down the water­front. Inex­plic­a­bly cursed, though I’m not sure why.

3/10 — mild­ly cursed, with much enclosed regret.


Clifton Cable Car Stop — Clifton Ter­race

The cable car is a Welling­ton insti­tu­tion. The Clifton cable car stop less so. Trav­el­ling upwards, it’s the first stop. Trav­el­ling down­wards it’s the last. After six years in Welling­ton I’ve seen approx­i­mate­ly one per­son use this stop, and I still don’t know why. As I write this, the cable car is hav­ing its annu­al main­te­nance, and as such, I would describe the stop as ‘des­o­late’, ‘weird’, and ‘mild­ly fright­en­ing’. It backs onto the Clifton car park, which I would also describe as all of those things.

4.5/10 — mild­ly cursed. It is not at all sign­post­ed. How are peo­ple sup­posed to find this place? (Maybe they’re not????)


Farm­ers Lane, Terrace/Lambton Quay

I was pleas­ant­ly sur­prised when I arrived at this loca­tion today, for it was much less cursed than I was expect­ing. Farm­ers Lane stairs pro­vide a haunt­ed link between the Ter­race and Lambton Quay — right next to the Lambton food court — and are usu­al­ly pret­ty hor­ri­fy­ing. How­ev­er, they’ve been paint­ed with a mur­al, so they’re vague­ly less so now, though, still fair­ly grim. The love­ly peo­ple over at Welling­ton Steps (a blog cat­e­goris­ing all of Welling­ton’s many, many steps) have dis­cussed them in full, grim, pre-paint­ing detail.

Still a fair­ly fright­en­ing look out towards some bins if you stop to peruse whilst tra­vers­ing down­ward.

4.5/10 — mild­ly cursed, but only because I have a fond­ness for the ramen at the Lambton Eatery.


Kumu­to­to Stream, Wood­ward St

Kumu­to­to Stream is a tun­nel that runs under the Ter­race from the Clifton carpark to Wood­ward St. Part art instal­la­tion, part weird vibes, this tun­nel is unique to many tun­nels in the sense that when you walk through it, you can hear bird­song and run­ning water. A 2014 art instal­la­tion, the use of bird­song and nature is sup­posed to invoke the feel­ings of walk­ing along­side the for­mer Kumu­to­to Stream (which ran rough­ly around this spot), and allow passers-by to con­sid­er their place in Welling­ton’s his­to­ry and what occurred in the spot before them.

Which it does, to a point.

It also inspires feel­ings of fear. In me. Because walk­ing through a dark tun­nel towards an even dark­er carpark late at night is fright­en­ing even if you hear birds along the way.

5/10 — some­what cursed. I like the bird­song and the idea, it’s just very… creepy.


The Exchange Building/The Atri­um — Blair/Allen St

Took me a lit­tle bit of wan­der­ing around to find this one. Word is that it used to be the site of Welling­ton’s pro­duce mar­kets, for over fifty years. Cur­rent­ly it acts as an event space for hire, open to the pub­lic dur­ing the day but closed off at night, as well as an over­flow space for Mon­soon Poon (near­by).

It is a her­itage build­ing, and it is also inex­plic­a­bly cursed. I did­n’t know it exist­ed, which adds to the hor­ror, but it’s also just a very weird — almost lim­i­nal — space. There’s a feel­ing of peo­ple in the space, but there’s no one around. It’s silent, almost, wrapped in weird cur­tains and dust motes. A space on the verge of poten­tial, but not quite there yet.

It’s also just real­ly weird being able to see into shops from the back, like some kind of ghost.

6/10 — gen­uine­ly unnerv­ing.

Cap­i­tal on the Quay, Upstairs — Lambton Quay


If you go out of the upstairs part of Whit­coulls on Lambton Quay and head towards Cap­i­tal on the Quay, you’ll walk right into this very weird and freaky space. It’s right next to some lifts, but that still does­n’t explain the weird aura and uncom­fort­able blank­ness that the space holds. Y’all, chuck a mur­al in there. Paint a wall. Do some­thing to make it look a lit­tle less like a set from a bad Net­flix sci-fi film. Please. It’s freaky.

6.5/10 — I don’t like this at all.

 

Taste on Willis — Cnr Willis St/Lambton Quay

If there is one food court for­sak­en by all things holy in Welling­ton, it’s def­i­nite­ly this one. Yeah, most food courts are mild­ly cursed. They’re tran­sient spaces, odd and freaky and full of a faint lay­er of grease, but Taste on Willis is… some­thing spe­cial.

Some­times the esca­la­tors work. Some­times they don’t. I had a sprained ankle recent­ly and could­n’t go down stairs and not a sin­gle one of their esca­la­tors was work­ing, which real­ly put a span­ner in my plans to go to JB Hi-Fi. It’s a good day if all of their esca­la­tors are work­ing, I’ll tell you that much.

It’s less creepy when there’s peo­ple in it, so if you’ve got a han­ker­ing for the fine delights that food courts have, go around lunchtime. If you want to con­duct a rit­u­al to sum­mon a vague­ly salty demon, try almost any oth­er time. I would hate to be trapped in there at night.

Also, their bath­rooms are through a side door and down a set of mur­der stairs. For starters, not great acces­si­bil­i­ty, and sec­ond­ly — freaky.

7/10 — I know there’s many oth­er food courts in Welling­ton but please. This place is haunt­ed.

Oaks Upstairs — Cuba St

Now, I’ve not been to the Oaks Satay House, but I’ve heard good things. What I’ve not heard good things about is the utter­ly strange space that’s upstairs next to the restau­rant. It’s com­plete­ly blank, sign­less, seem­ing­ly unused. In the Tweet thread I pulled a lot of these from, it was the one place that cropped up most often. What’s going on up there?

Dur­ing CubaDu­pa 2019, Binge Cul­ture used a por­tion of the space for part of their excel­lent show This Text Will Self-Destruct and it worked nice­ly. Hon­est­ly, I’m sure the place would be fine if it was just used for some­thing, but as it stands, it’s not and it isn’t, and it remains insane­ly cursed.


Old Welling­ton Region (Face­book Page)

His­tor­i­cal­ly speak­ing, the Oaks replaced the Roy­al Oak Hotel in the ear­ly 80s. The Roy­al Oak had quite the excit­ing his­to­ry (warn­ing for aged lan­guage around queer­ness) but was demol­ished in 1979 and replaced by an elab­o­rate shop­ping com­plex, includ­ing a cov­ered walk­way across to the James Smith build­ing. The Bam­boo and Sol bars were appar­ent­ly places to be in the 90s.

Vicky Robert­son, Late Lost Nightlife of Welling­ton (Face­book group)

Now, how­ev­er, the Oaks is almost fea­ture­less upstairs, and a selec­tion of bars, excel­lent book­shops and retails stores down­stairs. One hopes that some­one could find some­thing to do with the very weird loca­tion upstairs at some point in the future.

8/10 — freaky and cursed, but most­ly because of the his­to­ry.

 

James Smith Carpark/Opera House Lane

Look, I’m fair­ly fond of Opera House Lane. I’ve filmed things there, much like liter­al­ly every­one else shoot­ing in Welling­ton, and I’m a big fan of the opera house. How­ev­er… the James Smith carpark, and to an extent Opera House Lane itself are unmis­take­ably, insane­ly cursed.

The James Smith carpark was closed some­time in 2018 for earth­quake repairs and now stands as a weird, slight­ly apoc­a­lyp­tic mon­u­ment to car park­ing in the city. Opera House Lane itself report­ed­ly has a check­ered his­to­ry, and the whole place feels vague­ly… weird. Spooky, haunt­ed, aban­doned by time.

Maybe it’s the pad­locked doors, maybe it’s the walk­ways that go nowhere, or maybe it’s the barbed wire, but there’s some­thing so alien and inhos­pitable about this area. I like it, but it fright­ens me. It’s a tran­sient space, full of emp­ty carparks and emp­ty moments, and almost def­i­nite­ly some dan­gers.

????????/10 — wild­ly cursed.

These are obvi­ous­ly not the be all and end all of weird and spooky places in Welling­ton. Check out the map. Com­ment your own. We live in a city with a lot of strange, cursed his­to­ry — it’s no won­der it shows up in our streets.