1947: Auckland’s First Traffic Lights

Our bungalow is about to get a whole bunch of loving, starting any minute now. Progress is taking hold!

Today we were busy carefully deconstructing some late 1940s modernisations: lifting the last of the vinyl flooring to expose the matai beneath and removing false ceilings to reveal the original 9-10ft high panel ceilings with exposed beams.

It is such a joy. Perhaps it is a little like finding that missing sock you’ve been searching forever for. It just seems right when the house is reunited with its old self. You can just sense it smiling.

The wooden matai floorboards haven’t seen the light of day for some 70 years. The tongue-and-groove is in wonderful condition, it is remarkable. Helping them to remain that way were multiple layers of 1947 newspapers between the vinyl and the wooden boards. What a delight. If only there was enough hours in the day to read every single article, advertisement and classified column.

It’s easy to get distracted when you’re renovating an old house, especially with a discovery like this.

I find it very fascinating. 70 year old news is very spine-tingling particularly as you are reading breaking news for the time, fully well knowing how history unfolded soon after – or continues to unfold decades on.

History billows from every sentence of these only slightly yellowed pages. This brief two sentence caption made me smile.

Thursday, October 16, 1947: THE FIRST TRAFFIC LIGHTS in Queen Street are now being installed at the corner of Victoria Street. Here a traffic inspector is directing motor traffic.

Gorgeous, don’t you think?  The old street lamps, trams, cars and fashion.  According to a NZ Herald article, Queen Street’s first traffic lights were automated and had pedestrian crossing controls too. Fancy.

Auckland’s first “vehicle-actuated” traffic lights – triggered by cars, trams, horse-drawn lorries or even bicycles running over rubber pads – began operating at the intersection of Customs and Albert Sts in June 1947, and were followed soon after by lights in Queen St with pedestrian push-button controls.