The Final Days of Auckland's Inner-City Slum

You could say 454 Great North Road feels like a university hall gone to seed, if that phrase didn't imply the possibility of regeneration. Formerly St Joseph's Convent, built in 1922, the stucco of its Spanish Mission-style façade is stained with grime, in contrast to the crisp white of a neighbouring apartment complex. It is now a kind of upright slum—housing the poor, the mad, the desperate—in Grey Lynn, one of Auckland's most fashionable and expensive suburbs.

Inside, defaced signs with ignored regulations—"NO COOKING IN ROOMS", "ROOMS TO BE KEPT CLEAN & TIDY"—are posted on the walls, and unmistakeable wafts of piss assail your nostrils as you pass communal toilets, with the remnants of the many thousands of cigarettes smoked inside nearly masking that and other odours as you move through dark hallways. It is sunless, claustrophobic, vaguely threatening. More correct, then, to say, it hasn't gone to seed: it has gone completely to shit.

Or, if you are JLL Property, the company charged with the building's sale, it is a "Grey Lynn Site with huge Development Potential", an opportunity for a canny investor to add to Great North Road's growing catalogue of upscale apartments, and whose recently removed heritage designation is just another incentive for multi-million dollar investment. Homes.co.nz has its value at $2,250,000, though it's likely to sell for much, much more.

VICE wanted to hear the opinions of those who would be most affected by the sale: the building's residents. What have their lives been like? How do they feel about living in what local councillor Mike Lee called a "slum in the heart of the city"? And how would they feel if the building's sale and redevelopment forces them out? Some of their stories are below, edited slightly for clarity and length.

Michael O'Grady, 63

"It's not that great staying here but we gotta live somewhere, you know. We can't afford to live anywhere else other than here because it's all paid for by social welfare. There's thieving, the condition of the place.

Coming from Mission Bay to Remuera to here—it's a hell of a fall. I lost my money in that Mark Hotchin finance company, and then ended up in jail for selling a $1.5 million worth of acid. I've gone from having millions of dollars to nothing. It feels ratshit. All of a sudden it all hit the fan. But I'm at the end of my life; I'm not well. Liver cancer—if it blows open I get two or three weeks to live. I'm always in pain; I'm being medicated, but I'll die in agony unfortunately.

I've worked all my life, then lost all my money to some fucking shonky finance cunt, but I'm 63, so I've had a good whack at it. I've done 25-and-a-half years in jail—that was for all sorts of things. I just went on a fucking rampage, you know. I shouldn't have, but I did.

I was attacked in the hallway here. I spent three-and-a-half months in intensive care, so it wasn't a touch-up. Various gang members, can't name them. It was a payback—I beat up one of their prospects. Some of my ribs were busted into eight or nine pieces; I've got wounds all over. They beat me with a vacuum cleaner. They had the cord around my neck dragging me out and smacking me with it. Police launched a murder inquiry because they thought I wouldn't survive.

I've still got a bit of land on Great Barrier Island. I'll get out of here, mate. Our lives are not a joke, mate, and we've got to live somewhere. We might have been bad boys and maybe we still are, but everyone deserves a second chance."

Julie Chang, 68

"I've lived here for 12-and-a-half years. I get along well with the neighbours and that and the people that live here. Last month I had a break in. Someone came in and took $185. I had it hidden away, but they found it. My partner added bolts to the door so people can't get in here. In all the time I've lived here, I've only been robbed once before and that was by someone who took my wallet, literally took it out of my hand—he asked me for $2.50 and just grabbed my wallet and took off with it. It had $120 dollars in it. I knew who it was and I told his brother and his brother dealt to him and he gave me $40 back.

My dad came to New Zealand from China when he was 11 and he met my mum when she was 12 and he was 14 and they got married when Mum was 18 and Dad was 20. He was an electrician by trade. He only had three years of schooling. My mum is still alive—she'll be 88 next month and still drives a car.

I'm on the pension, and living here I get good money. I'm paying $185 rent. The pension is about $300 a week so I get about $100 in my hand after rent goes out. I try to save a bit of money. I'm actually trying to save now in case I do have to move, so I've got money to move with.
I used to be a gambler—I can tell you that now. I spent all my money. It would be nothing for me to go out on pay night and blow $400 and then the next day blow the rest and then think, shit, what am I going to live on for a fortnight?

When I got robbed that time and that guy took my wallet I just stopped gambling. I just quit. I never put another penny in a poker machine. He almost did me a favour. On that day I had $1.50 in my bank account, and I've got a lot more in there now. I'm doing quite well.

If I knew then what I know now, I would never have gone gambling. It caused me a lot of heartache, and I was alienated from my family. It was my own fault. I caused my dad a lot of heartache, which I regret, but I'm sure now, wherever he is up there, he is looking down and he is quite happy. He can rest in peace now."

Lance Glozier, 50

"I've lived here for a couple of years. It's ok. Most of the time I go down to Toi Ora and do art down there—it's a community arts centre. The future of this place doesn't really bother me because I'll just go somewhere else. But actually it hasn't been too bad in here for me—doing art and that, so it's been ok for me.

You've got all sorts in here. I just basically keep to myself, you know, I don't worry about other people's business. A lot of shit goes on but it's not my business. People can do what they want in their space. They're paying their rent, you know, that's how it is. You know what goes on here—you read the papers and that. You've just got to live around it, or let it live around you—live and let live. I'm in my own headspace most of the time so everything's just externally out there. I don't get attached to anything. I just do what I do."

Christopher "Scotty" Scott, 58

"I don't particularly like living here at all, but the main reason I'm here is that it's very central—I can walk to the city, I can walk almost anywhere. So that's the key reason. I was transferred here from Point Chevalier Hospital. I've got a bit of a drinking issue, so they tried to iron me out, did their best, and they transferred me here. That was about two decades ago. I still enjoy a beer.

I'm fortunate that I've had people that I've mixed with that are smart—I think you tend to borrow off them, don't you? I went out with a lawyer there for a while. She wouldn't put up with any nonsense. If you had something to say, you had to make a submission. I asked, 'What's a submission?' She said, 'I'm the judge, you're the lawyer now, and you've got to submit whatever you want to say.' So I had to become educated.

I haven't enquired about what to do if this place closes down. I just tend to bumble along. The main reason I've been so lax is that I've lived in a tent before, and I don't really suffer too much from the cold, so being in a tent wouldn't really hurt me.

Mainly I sit in the corner over there by the bus stop. It's sheltered, it's out of the way, and if it starts raining you can just duck into the shelter, do a bit of reading. Certainly there are things in the building I want to stay away from—just the average."

All photos by Danial Eriksen. Follow Danial on Instagram.

Story and interviews by James Borrowdale. Follow James on Twitter.