Another member of the endangered species

A detail from a traffic control box that I photographed (while inadvertently walking in a construction area) at the corner of Park Road and Carleton Gore in Grafton, just opposite Outhwaite Park and the Auckland Domain. Why inadvertently? I got off at a bus stop across the road by Outhwaite Park, to head cross-country towards the museum a couple of weeks ago. I noticed that the old service station on the corner was undergoing either a doing-up or a doing-down/demolition, but because I was concentrating on what I wanted to look up at the museum library, I wasn't paying really close attention to the fact that contractors are doing up the corners of that intersection right now. I was about to cross over Park Road to correct the mistake -- when I spotted the box.

The paintwork was already chipped when I spotted it, and knowing that this intersection was being upgraded just as they done at Avondale -- probably, the next time I see this control box, it will be that same, plain greeny-grey paint all over it. If it's still there at all, that is.

On the topic of folks beautifying street boxes, Phil Hanson sent through a snippet from the Western Leader of 23 July about Mark Whyte of Glen Eden painting a power generator box out there, near Waikumete Cemetery. There's an earlier photo of him working here. He terms his work "a public mural that enhances the visual environment."

I agree with him wholeheartedly. I must see about heading up there to take a photo of it.