More Info →Postcard of the Square - Church Street West through to Main Street West

This post card appears to have been taken from or near the top of the Old Post Office. On Church Street West, the Evening Standard and Municipal Chambers stand beside All Saints Church (built 1878). On the Square's corner is the Grand Hotel (built 1906), the Manawatu Daily Times (on this site until 1913, J Mortenson's Watchmakers, R Hannah's Bootmakers, William Park's Bookshop (in business until 1910) and J.P. Leary's (on the site until about 1931) and the Coles Building (now the PNCC Central Administration Building).. The small white building in the Square is an observatory. The Coronation Monument, built to commemorate Edward VII's coronation, is in the left of the picture. It is now in the corner of the Square nearest to Broadway. It is now part of a fountain. The postcard shows 'intensive railway yards' along Main Street West. The rotunda visible is the second that was placed in the Square. The first, a smaller structure, was built in 1899, but moved to the Victoria Esplanade in 1907. The rotunda in this picture was built shortly after that. It was demolished in 1956 to make way for the Hopwood Clock Tower in 1956.