By some accounts, it was a great success. The giant chess set proved to be very popular, as was the wizard. 1500 children under seven rode on the merry-go-round. Noise levels were reduced by approximately 5 decibels, and CO2 levels never exceeded the max level. There was a 13.7 increase in the number of people in Queen Street during the mall week, and according to70% of pedestrians surveyed thought the mall was “good or very good.”But it was swings and roundabouts (quite literally).The same report noted, within the mall area, 41% of retailers reported financial losses. Theinterviewed Mr. Frank Carter of Stone’s Shoe Shop who lamented “it’s not much good to me having a street full of kids, when I’ve got a window display of women’s high fashion footwear priced from $60 to $260.”This sentiment was echoed by the owner of Hartman Furs, who argued that children were not in the market for fine furs and during the mall period a fight broke out in her shop. W.J. Taylor, from Taylor’s Plaza shoes, noted that his trading was down 26%, and blamed it on The Wizard drawing large crowds that blocked off the entrance to the shop.

Showing a child touching the side of a moving trolley bus, lunch time, Thursday, 10 May 1979, Queen Street Trial [Pedestrian] Mall, ACC 432 Box 1 Item 7f Record C5 Record ID 502375, Auckland Council Archives.





Showing the makeshift bus stop purpose built for the mall, during the week of 7 May, 1979, Queen Street Trial [Pedestrian] Mall, ACC 432 Box 1 Item 9l Record E8 Record ID 502421, Auckland Council Archives.





Protest action infiltrated the trial mall on the Tuesday by members and supporters of Māori protest group He Taua. An article from The New Zealand Herald on 9 May 1979, noted they were speaking out in opposition of the previous week’s events which saw the group try to stop a racist haka performed by engineering students, resulting in violence and undue arrest. Although they very briefly occupied the trial mall, it challenged the childish carnival façade created by Auckland City Council.



More challengers came in the form of “scruffy in appearance, bad language entertainers” who moved into the mall without council approval, trying to make some money off the crowds. In fact, in survey results shown in The Queen Street Mall Pre Implementation Report, many Queen Street business owners mentioned the fact that the mall encouraged “layabouts” and not the “right type of people.” This alone exemplifies the narrow-minded view that stalled mall proceedings in the first place.



For one week, whether it was loved or hated, Queen Street was transformed into an epicentre of pedestrian activity. The issue comes with the fact that those who loved the mall were largely children or families from outside the area, and those who disliked the mall were business owners with properties in the area. This balance of power influenced planning efforts, preceding, throughout, and after the Trial Mall period. As a result, a pedestrian mecca on Auckland’s main street lasted only for a brief week in May 1979, and never again since.



For one week, whether it was loved or hated, Queen Street was transformed into an epicentre of pedestrian activity. The issue comes with the fact that those who loved the mall were largely children or families from outside the area, and those who disliked the mall were business owners with properties in the area. This balance of power influenced planning efforts, preceding, throughout, and after the Trial Mall period. As a result, a pedestrian mecca on Auckland’s main street lasted only for a brief week in May 1979, and never again since.

The trolley bus was another issue altogether. An article in theargued an apt slogan for the mall would be “go to a poetry reading, and get hit by a bus.” The apparent safety of a carless mall was undermined by children, who were touching the sides of the moving trolley bus and large crowds of people drawn by entertainers often interrupted the bus route. The warning alarm to signal that the bus was approaching was far too loud which led a satirical critic in theto say it “made Fritz Muller dive for cover, thinking the Gestapo were after him.” The volume was eventually reduced.