Notional Significance: Concrete Archipelago

The path, from tilted field down into the motorway chasm, winds past richly-tagged garage walls and rear fences. In my mind, I think that Oak Park Avenue was once like this — dark brick, spalling concrete, crunching gravel, rusting corrugate — but I no longer trust my memory as anything other than a synthesis of sensations and […]

predictive bussing revisited

It’s been the better part of a year since we wrote about the Regional Council’s Real Time Passenger Information project. GPS units are now being fitted to a growing subset of Go Wellington buses (other companies to follow soon), so that their real-time positions can be used to calculate exact “time to arrival” information for […]

Notional Significance: Up and Under

[See all Notional Significance posts] The path sidles away from the road. To my left, and indeed to almost everyone’s left, is Wellington’s radical headquarters, 128 Abel Smith St. It’s well over three years since the shattering dawn when police smashed down the door, seeking evidence of so-called “terror camps”, but the Urewera 18 are […]

Notional Significance: Resistance

[See all Notional Significance posts] I weave through concrete islands and metal barriers to the edge of the Basin Reserve. Just inside the fence is a monument to William Wakefield: as an abduction accomplice, mercenary, principled duelist and city father, he was the marginally more respectable of the Wakefield boys. The memorial is supposed to […]

Notional Significance: Underground

[See all Notional Significance posts] As I approach the tunnel mouth, I can’t help but notice the looming cliff to my right. I try to imagine the promised/threatened second tunnel, and the impact that its eastern portal will have on the landscape. I envision a giant tunnel-boring mole bursting from the mountainside, like one of […]

Notional Significance: Takeoff

National significance begins with a roundabout: from the air it looks like a navel, the axis of the world, the green Omphalos where one begins. But what is beginning here? There’s a distinct impression that more traffic comes from the eastern suburbs via Broadway than from the airport itself, which would make this a somewhat […]

Notional Significance: Flyer

Before reaching the starting point of the journey, I need to take a preliminary journey, from something resembling the heart of the city to the start of the highway: the airport. That in itself tells us something about just where cities fit into the whole “National Significance” agenda. A city is never an end in […]

Wellington's new route

It’s been a long time coming, but finally the buses are running through the thoroughfare formerly known as Manners Mall. With clipped bus wing mirrors, bowled down pedestrians, and general chaos predicted by some, I decided to get down to Manners Street and check out the new bus route.

TAWA5 Best Thing in Wellington

This category is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s where we put things that we want to celebrate that didn’t seem to fit anywhere else, but that doesn’t mean these nominations are second thoughts. Indeed, they’re actually the some of the first things we think of when we try to define what makes Wellington […]

So we had some awards

In fact some of us right now are celebrating those awards, at the most lovely of locations, the Mighty Mighty.

But if you were unable to make it to the TAWAS here’s how you all voted.

Expect a review of the night later on tomorrow, and by later on I mean after afternoon tea.

For right now many of the wellingtonista are shaking their thing to the sounds of the Klezmer Rebs.

Also hopefully Hadyn who is the king of stats will offer up some analysis of the way you voted.

And if you havn’t already why not head over to the DCM and give a little. As I write at this very moment $10 has been donated to DCM. If everyone who reads this blog dontated $5 each, together  we will  make a serious difference in the lives of Wellingtonians who are most at risk and in need this Christmas.

Best Cheap Eats: Sweet Mother’s Kitchen
Best un-Cheap Eats: Matterhorn
Best Drink in Town: Castlepoint at Mighty Mighty
Best Late Night Hangout: Mighty Mighty
Best Suburban Destination: Maranui Cafe
Best non-Drinking Destination: Wellington Central Library
Best Place to Shake It WINNERS: Mighty Mighty & San Francisco Bath House
Best Public Space: The Waterfront
Best Art Experience: Yayoi Kusama at City Gallery Wellington
Best Apparel: Mandatory
Best Shop: Slowboat
Most Needed: Bike lanes
Best Service: Matt at Mojo Old Bank
Best Coffee: Mojo Old Bank
Best Contribution to the Internet by a Wellingtonian: The Webstock Team
Best Regular Entertainment: The Wellington Phoenix
Best Live Performance: Question Time at Parliament
Best Wellington-based Event: The Cuba Carnival
Wellingtonian of the Year: Martin Bosley for the City Market