Nova Place in the Central City, Christchurch

Nova Place – formerly York Street. A report in the Star in 1880 of a meeting of the City Council says York Street has been “channelled, formed and shingled”. First appears in street directories in 1883. Re-named Nova Place in 1918. A small amount of information from the library website and the renaming is far more interesting than the brief information there. From Papers Past it was difficult to find out information about York Street as every town in NZ seem to have a York Street and even with limiting how many papers to look at there were a lot of entries. In 1918 it was proposed to rename the street Weka Place but the residents objected because there was already a Weka St in Fendalton. One of the councillors came up with the name Nova and it is Avon spelt backwards. I wasn’t expecting this as Nova means star and I thought that this would be the reason for the name.There was a letter of complaint to the Council about the renaming of the street. The reason for the complaint was that the street had been York Street for 45 years and was named by Edward Jollie and Captain Thomas after a bishopric. The person who complained died the next year.This is a sad looking street with empty sections and rundown buildings except for the one on the corner with Barbadoes St. At the end of the street is a large building and car park belonging to a Bridge Club. The QV website said 10 properties mostly built in the 1990s with a couple in 2017 and one in 1950 and this surprised me. A certain developer has signs all over the place here so expect cheaply built apartments that sell for over the top prices to appear here.