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This column doesn't really do nostalgia: there's always something more important.
But I like a warm wallow as much as anyone so, just for this week, let's...
The trigger was Masonic Park, down on the Strand, now apparently “finished”. I saw photos and went to look. There are raised grass areas and plant beds with intricate walkways between them, golden shade gazebos and even three open fountains. It looks lovely. It looks a million bucks. Or three...
Sure, a little churlish voice in me couldn't help but wonder what the point of the fountains is. And it's hard not to ask if the gazebos are possibly a bit over-designed, featuring all the swanky little touches millionaires prize on their suburban verandas.
Masonic Park.
For better or worse it looks like a gentrifiers' dream of what clean green modern city spaces are meant to look like. At least the World's Most Boring Earthwork, the site of a bakery where nothing of historical import occurred, has been concreted over.
But what of last time it was “finished”? Rewind 15 years and Masonic Park was flattish and green, before endless rounds of installing concrete walkways. The Phoenix was still The Horny Bull, before Mark and Mel upped sticks and started the Good Local in Pyes Pa.
Back then there were music festivals in Masonic Park; there was even a big Jazz Festival stage each year. Of course, with all the new features there's no room for that now.
Looking back further, the park was “finished” in 1993 after tearing down the Masonic Tavern - previously the Masonic Hotel for over 100 years - a hugely significant establishment, because that's where the jazz cats gathered.
Tauranga doesn't host the National Jazz Festival for no reason. It's because in the 1960s and '70s many of the country's finest musicians lived here. The musicians who started the jazz festival in 1963 were once the musical punks who today put on Loserpalooza.
Bill Hoffmeister, Cedric Sutherland, Jim Langabeer, Brian Geoghan, John Nicholson, Dave Proud, Jan Kessel, Jack Claridge and so many more put Tauranga on the musical map when jazz was the hot happenin' music. At the Masonic Hotel.
The Masonic Park Hotel. Photo: Tauranga Museum, 0026/10.
Along the road the Saint Amand Hotel now houses the Saint Wine Bar. In the 1980s and '90s it was the town's main rock venue. Upstairs was The Harbour Lights, home of Hit And Run, Hard To Handle, Ritchie Pickett and more. Downstairs there was nightly music in the Mainbrace, late bands on weekends, and regular all-night lockdowns on Saturdays after most punters left.
Those were legendary sessions. The Sensational Gutter Brothers – with Graham Clark and The Flaming Mudcats' Doug Bygrave – played often; one year Maurice Greer and Corben Simpson came to town for a summer residency and never left. I remember being kicked out of there with Graham Brazier after accidentally offending the new local cop. Good times.
But enough strolling down memory lane. Thank you for joining me. Next week – there's a lot coming up in October...
Masonic Park.
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