Daily Photo – King Edward Technical College

Later in the day I went into a café near the Octagon, bought a Coke, and sat in the window with the book I’d been reading. I read for a minute or two before finding myself simply watching the passing scene. It was surprisingly busy for a weekday afternoon. People stood in large groups on the footpath, looking lost and pointing in all sorts of directions before  shuffling off at more or less the same time in more or less the same direction.

I watched all this with great fascination, occasionally sipping my drink and abandoning my book entirely. Then it hit me like a bolt of lightning. I knew exactly who these people were: cruise ship passengers. Suddenly everything made sense. The guidebooks, the cameras, the maps, the heavy jackets, the peaked sun caps, and the expressions that hovered somewhere between confusion and forced interest. Dunedin had entered cruise ship season, and for the next five months the city would be crawling with people who didn’t quite know where they were or what they were doing here. Come to think of it, that could also describe a fair number of the city’s university students.

Having finished my drink, I gathered my things and made my way up Stuart Street, passing the stunning St Paul’s Cathedral and the old Fortune Theatre. After crossing Moray Place and Smith Street, I found myself opposite the former King Edward Technical College. It is a truly impressive building when you stop and take it all in, yet it seems oddly forgotten about in recent times until it made the news when a truck crashed into it or the owner floated the idea of selling it. Suddenly, everyone leaped up in outrage about what a travesty it would be to lose such a place. Then the news faded and people went back to ignoring it.

The building really is remarkable. For twenty years it was New Zealand’s largest secondary school. It boasted a saltwater swimming pool, which was quite fancy for a school at the time, a walk-in safe, which is not something you expect in a school, and it is listed as a Category I historic place, meaning it holds special or outstanding historical or cultural significance. Yet when it went up for sale in 2022, the local council chose not to buy it due to financial limitations, competing priorities, and risk. That left the way clear for a private buyer to swoop in and purchase it for $2.9 million and do whatever he likes with it.

Is it just me, or is that a tiny bit sad?