Heartland - Queen Street

The good thing about that is of you get tired you can rest your chin on the top of it as well, aye?

– Gary McCormick points out the benefits of busking with an accordian

See a lot of eels.

– Council worker Ken Karu on the aquatic life in Queen St stormwater drains

If New Zealand has a main street, a national front door, then Queen St is it. Many of our nation's major dramas have been played out right here. Whether you're from Mataura or South Auckland, Queen St is as downtown as we get.

– Presenter Gary McCormick introduces an ode to Auckland's 'main street'

I don't know but I get quite frightened when I go to the country.

– Artist and designer Tracey Collins prefers her urban setting

In the old days it was like a theatre, you used to go down there and perform really and the public would come and watch it ... it's not as exciting as it used to be.

– Trader John Rowley misses the high drama of the stock exchange floor in the 1980s

At first I was a little bit intimidated especially by all the people in suits; it's not something that you see of a lot in Kaitaia...but now that I'm used to it I love the buzz about Queen Street. I love the feeling about it.

– Florist Stacey Millar on getting used to working on Auckland's famous main street

Players work, workers play.

– Artist and designer Tracey Collins on inner city life on Queen Street

The gallows up Victoria Street were used five times between 1842 and 1858. They hung five people on the site.

– Archeologist Simon Best on the grim history of Auckland's famous street and side streets

The old trams were the most wonderful transport in Auckland....

– Queen's Ferry Hotel regular 'Mac' recalls when Queen Street was lined with trams

The glass buildings, they're parasites that leech on the more historic facades because they work on reflection, they offer nothing themselves ... now a lot of people in Auckland don't even come to Queen Street, we have, quelle horreur, people who have never heard of the Civic.

– Civic Theatre manager Eric Kearney describes his disdain for the corporate glass towers of Queen St

Anything that was Oriental or Eastern was a fantasy and to come to a fantasy palace for about two or three hours in the middle of the depression...it was an escape.

– Civic Theatre manager Eric Kearney talks about the glamorous intent of the building

Queen Street had an unwavering destiny, rising from the mud to become Auckland’s most noble thoroughfare. Old photographs show better than any words the speed, vigour and untidiness of this process. So much was happening so swiftly as the margins of the town pushed out into the sea that it must have been as much a marvel to the people caught up in it as it is to us today. So much excavation and upheaval, mud and wreckage. So much sawn timber, so many new structures, so many boats. And all the time Queen Street was gaining stature as the town’s main social and emotional centre.

– Writer Jack Leigh describes the 1902 construction of Queen Street, New Zealand Geographic Magazine, January 1993