Rendells. George Courts. McDonalds. Margaret. Mercury Theatre. Guadalupe. Rising Sun.
Late night Thursdays. This was the K Road of my youth. But how many Zillennials would make the connection between these words, that to me, encapsulate the K Road of the 1980s and what it is now? And what is it now? As a local who’s lived in the area for close to twenty years, I find myself at a loss to describe the street I still love so deeply.
My first memory of K Road is being taken there by my father in the early 1980s. He sold textiles, and Rendells were one of his clients. His late wife worked in Rendells in the Manchester Department, asked him to a party and the rest is history. Later, friends of mine worked late night Thursdays in the makeup section on the top floor. It had a fabulous array of affordable brands in a space that seemed to go on forever.
My husband and I moved to the area in 2006. The theatre and late-night shopping had long gone but there was exciting new stuff emerging. Clubs like Ink Bar, The Wine Cellar, Verona, Family, and nearby Khuja Lounge. Interesting restaurants like Cocos Cantina and Apero began to pop up a few years later, transforming what had primarily been a café and op-shopping destination by day and a clubbing destination by night into an extension of Ponsonby Road’s fine dining district. In many ways, it was becoming gentrified, but its hub as a place where the LGBQT community felt welcomed and where sex work had finally been decriminalised made it diverse and welcoming enough to still feel like a community. Margaret, who worked her bench outside the old Rendells till it became the Lim Chhour food court that still stands, was for many of us a link to the old K road of the 1980s till her death in 2011.
From time to time, friends or family would express concern when I casually mentioned walking home along K Road at night, but I never felt unsafe. Most interactions, whether by day or night were friendly. It wasn’t uncommon for a trans street worker to say hi or compliment my attire and other than the occasional request for a cigarette or dollar, I rarely encountered homeless people. My kids, having grown up in the area likewise felt safe to explore once they were in their teens. But in the last few years something has shifted.
Walking to work along the road now, the instances of aggressive behaviour I witness has increased significantly. Homelessness has undoubtedly worsened, but are all these people homeless? Is the issue drug addiction? Severe mental health challenges? All of the above? I just don’t know. This morning, I told my husband I was mulling over writing this piece, but was it just me? No, he said. He’d just come home from City Fitness and had witnessed some men becoming hostile towards a couple sitting outside Zeki’s having a coffee when they refused to give them money.
My family have seen someone break into a wine shop, grab a bottle and smash it on the ground outside. A man screaming and throwing road cones into the street. Police struggling to get an aggressive person into a paddy wagon. Last week I watched a guy on an e-scooter scream profanities down his phone as he rode at high speed towards K Road.
Recently my 18-year-old daughter had a man approach her and scream unintelligibly in her face. She was so scared she backtracked to the Rainbow Bridge bus shelter where someone was sitting so that he would stop following her. For the first time, I find myself worried for my kids’ safety.
The violence and antisocial behaviour is extending to our public transport network where drivers and passengers alike are at increasing risk of personal harm. The opening of the CRL in 2026 will connect K Road with wider Auckland, but what then? Will K Road even be a place that people want to come to if this level of violence and hostility continues to escalate?
Yet there is still so much to love. The K Road of 2025 houses some of the best restaurants in Auckland. It has a thriving music and clubbing scene. Op shops and cafes continue to flourish and new places keep popping up. So what is being done to safeguard these businesses, the people who run them and their patrons? Not to mention those of us for whom K Road is a critical pedestrian link to the wider CBD? Council has tried to do its bit by introducing Community Patrols but what little budget there is can’t go far enough. People are already getting hurt. More serious injuries to the public are inevitable. Most likely to one of us being in the wrong place at the wrong time when someone has a violent episode that causes harm to others.
Several weeks have passed since I started writing this article. In that time our family have experienced more incidents. My husband and daughter had an irate, screaming man with a bleeding head wound materialise in front of the car as they were driving on K Road towards Symonds Street, holding up the traffic with threatening behaviour. Fifteen minutes later, he was being apprehended by police. And more recently, as my family walked back from a pleasant evening in the Domain along Grafton Bridge, the most frightening incident yet – a man walking towards us, screaming in my husband’s face, looking primed for a fight. It was dark, there were very few people around, and as we retreated, he continued to yell aggressively after us, looking like he might follow.
I have done more research and established that drug addiction (mostly methamphetamine), coupled with severe mental health disorders is a common denominator in many of these cases, and that the escalation of antisocial behaviour coincided with the establishment of Te Ao Marama City Mission housing facility on Day Street in 2022. This is the same time our family began to notice an increasingly sinister vibe on K Road. Recently we had a long chat to one of the staff at Sly bar who corroborated this. Bubble, the young woman who can be seen barely clad and carrying a baby doll most days on K Road, has been known to come in and take pictures off their walls, behaviour that is no doubt irritating but mild compared to that of many others. These people clearly need greater support than the well-intentioned City Mission is currently able to offer. But, equally importantly, the general public and local business workers deserve to be safe in our neighbourhood.
How would I describe K Road now? Wonderful. Vibrant. Diverse. Edgy. Intimidating.
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