Category: Heritage

The Old RSA Soldier’s club

// Heritage
Image depicts 'Now and then' feature with old and new depictions of the CM Ross building in Palmerston North.

You probably know this majestic old Palmerston North Building better as Cafe Cuba, but it was originally built for the Manawatu Patriotic Society as the Soldier’s Club. It was completed in 1917 to a design from the firm of L G West & Son and was used by the RSA until 1966.

This slider compares 1979 and 2021.

Manawatū Heritage image 2009N_Bc162_BUI_2408 (Manawatū Evening Standard – Stuff Limited) compared with image 2021BD_IMCA-DigitalArchive_034735

The second image was taken in 2021 by Caleb, Sam and Natalie of the Manawatū Home Educator’s network as part of a session with the Heritage team at Palmerston North City Library. They went out to Cuba Street with an iPad specifically to take this photo so we could use it in this image compare slider. Well done team!

Seeking library photos

// Heritage
Image depicts poster of Library heritage building and logos for the City Library and Manawatū Heritage website.

As part of celebrating 25 years of the Library being at 4 The Square, we’re looking for images of our library activities and services we might never have seen before.

If you have some polaroids gathering dust under the bed or maybe a quick pic taken at one of our events, you can contribute to the history of our building. Bring your photo to the Heritage team on the second floor and we’ll show you how to create a high-quality digital copy and how to upload to Manawatū Heritage.

Already have a digital copy? Then you can contribute it directly by uploading here: manawatuheritage.pncc.govt.nz/contribute .

Hotel Midland in Coleman Mall

// Heritage
Image depicts 'Now and then' feature with old and new depictions of the CM Ross building in Palmerston North.

The Hotel Midland operated in Coleman Place from 1928–1965 on the site of the current retail store ‘Trumps’. It was demolished in October 1965, as it was deemed structurally unsound and not able to be economically converted for commercial use. The building was constructed in 1914 as the Everybody’s Theatre and operated until becoming an hotel in 1924. In the early 1960s it was owned by New Zealand Breweries Ltd. See more images of Hotel Midland and Coleman Mall at Manawatū Heritage.

Coleman Mall – site of the former Hotel Midland

News from the Ian Matheson City Archives

// Heritage

Recently the Ian Matheson City Archives received a fantastic donation of photographs from Morrison’s Pharmacy in Awapuni. Many of the photographs chart the development and growth of the pharmacy itself, but there are also images of the shopping centre and local area. This a welcome addition as a business archive and it adds to our limited collection of historical images of our suburbs.

Records of suburbs is a significant gap in our collections, so if you have any records and photographs that show life in the outer city over the years the Heritage team love to talk with you. Phone them at 06 351 4100 or send them an email.