Palace Hotel's last night of entertainment?


Palace Hotel's Last Day?
Originally uploaded by Mr Dewhurst
Breaking news this evening was of an historic hotel about to fall into the street in the central Auckland!

There I was on site within minutes trying to capture the building before it became fully obscured by emergency vehicles, police cars and cranes or even just fell over.

The 124 year old 'Palace Hotel' (formerly the Aurora Hotel) is currently undergoing renovations when large cracks started to appear in the facade today and pieces started falling off. From what I could see from outside the cordon is it's definitely looking rough.

The renovated hotel was planned to reopen in time for the Rugby World Cup in 2011 as a brothel (that's right - sex addled rugby fans running wild in our city!), but will unfortunately most likely be demolished overnight. Even as a brothel it's sad to see yet another historic Auckland landmark disappear.

Definitely the closest thing this sketcher has got to reportage sketching!