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Fitzroy park, Main Street

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Image

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Description: "Fitzroy park - railway track is still in Main Street"

Workmen are constructing the children's pool in Memorial Park at Terrace End (formerly called Fitzroy Park). The Palmerston North City Council purchased the site in 1938 and developed it into a recreational and sporting area. A memorial to citizens killed in World War Two (WWII) was erected and in 1954 Fitzroy Park was officially dedicated as Memorial Park. As the obelisk was removed 1983 the gates are now the official memorial. Note the railway lines in the foreground, from when the line ran out of the city via Main Street, before the Milson deviation took it to the outskirts.

Argosy Studio (Argos Industrial Photos) was a photography business owned and operated between 1950 and 1980 by Joe Greening (formerly employed by Elmar Studios). Originally located in Broadway, Argosy later moved to Cuba Street on the corner with Lombard Street.

As well as commissioned work (such as photographing the old railyards or aerial shots for the Council) Greening was known to operate as a street photographer, capturing the likenesses of passersby, offering his card with the negative number so they could buy the image if they wished. Many of these images will be in family photo albums.

A fire in 1965 destroyed many negatives in Argosy's collection but this image was one of the 400 or so survivors. Greening donated many of these surviving images to the Ian Matheson City Archives in 1989 before retiring to Kaitaia. He died in 2001.