Moa Place in the Central City, Christchurch

Moa Place in the Central City- At a meeting of the city council held on 21 October 1872, a letter was received from John Emanuel Anthony (1817?-1887) handing over the private roadway on behalf of residents and requesting it be named Moa Place. First appears in street directories in 1883.A small amount of information from the library website and I found the information about the naming of the street. John Emanuel Anthony never lived on this street but seems to have written a lot of letters to the council about the street. His occupation was Clerk of Works so it is possible that the letters were part of his job. Lots of complaints about drains and drainage and the drains were mentioned as early as 1873 and there were still complaints in 1899. I was amused by the request for Anthony’s drain to be filled in and for Anthony to use sewer pipe for draining of slops and to discontinue discharging into the drain. John Anthony lived on a neighbouring street to Moa Place. In 1882 there was a complaint about the state of the road after drainage repairs. Many requested for the road to be repaired and in 1879 the channelling had been finished. In 1891 there was mention of the road being regraded, channelled and asphalted after a petition from the ratepayers living on the street. In 1875 Mary Horn was charged with keeping a disorderly brothel on the street. In 1903 there was a fire in an unoccupied and uninsured house owned by John Dollan. There is a nearby street called Dollans Lane. Lots of death notices in Papers Past. I was amused by the couple of mentions of Hubert John Aulsebrook who lived at 14 Moa Place as he managed to fall off his bike twice. Once in 1942 and then again in 1943. This is a tiny street that runs off Madras St and end at a lovely wee park. There was a cute wee cottage dating from 1890 and a few houses from 1920s and 1930s but the rest are from 1990s and 2019. The modern houses are ugly apartments crammed onto to tiny sections but if I just say Williams Brothers I am sure many of you will understand why I disliked these newer places. Three of the older houses were painted in bright colours and sunglasses are required for the bright yellow house. There is apparently a holiday home available to rent on this street. Parking was terrible here and I thought where I lived was bad enough. There was a big empty section on the corner with Madras St.