Comments on: Mt Eden’s escalating gang problem

By: merc

merc — Thu, 11 Oct 2007 02:42:40 +0000

Same out our way (Out West) plus I used to live Mangere East, but the last large scale gang fight I’m aware of was in Ponsonby (KC’s), it’s strange how that world gets so little media focus, I guess because they are kids mostly.
I really admire people who work in this health service area.

By: Rebecca

Rebecca — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 22:04:35 +0000

funny as it may seem, sadly in central auckland there are gangs of very young people who wear colours and beat the living shit out of each other every chance they get. ie not very funny at all. i work for a health service aimed at young people with severe multiple complex needs (read drugs crime rape and fucked up families) and these kids are our caseload. sucks really.

By: merc

merc — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 01:50:43 +0000

Deeply so and it breaks my heart and others too (there is a great custodian living there) to see buses, cows, cars and people crawling all over the sacred spaces. I grew up on the side of Mount Saint John and it was a blessing that (despite the underground bunkers, like Mt Eden has) you had to walk to go up there.
Still the Mountain will endure long after the people have gone.

By: Robyn

Robyn — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 22:50:43 +0000

Oh, man. I live on the mountain side. In fact, I can walk from my flat to the top of the mountain without crossing any roads. It’s always had a curious quality to it. It’s not quite the “fantastic regional asset” that those in charge reckon. It’s much more complex.

By: merc

merc — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 21:08:25 +0000

You know Mt Eden was tapu for many many years until it was finally lifted in 19?. Ghosts walk the mountain, Esplanade is virtually on the mountain-side. There has been a lot of death and exploitation on that far stretching mountain, with sad quarrying (often the quarries were worked for political as well as practical reasons by the colonizing power), penal labour, genocide and bloody buses.
If it wasn’t so valuable as a piece of land and the inhabitants not decimated it should at least be handed into the care of the original hapu, however Ngati Whatua took care of that, I believe.

By: Robyn

Robyn — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 20:55:42 +0000

Wow, what a cool story!

There is something special about Esplanade Road, especially the bit from Mt Eden Rd to View Rd, where it’s villas on one side and sausage flats on the other. I used to live just around the corner on View and I’d walk down there every day.

By: merc

merc — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:58:47 +0000

Esplanade Road, and the reference to lithium was from a friend of mine because next door to us these unfortunate souls lived grouped in a mental welfare home (still do), most should have been in care (the Doc would arrive periodically in his Beamer and hand out…), others were on methodone. People would try and kill each other fairly regularly, or at least yell things to that effect. There were leadership squabbles owing to them pooling their benefits, it was really just a boarding house for the states disenfranchised.
One evening late after a deathly row between a man and a woman, in the post pallid silence, a new arrival sat on the porch strumming a beat up guitar, tuned exotically and with a tremulous beautiful voice sang Samoan? songs well into the night (3.00am actually), it was the most haunting concert I have never attended, plaintive, harrowing and beautiful. This man was Orpheus.
I never heard or saw him again.

By: Robyn

Robyn — Fri, 05 Oct 2007 06:40:08 +0000

What a cool story, Merc. I’m intrigued where this Lithium Road is, but perhaps it’s best I don’t know…

There is a bona fide gang in Eden Terrace – the Hell’s Angels! I used to live around the corner from them. Occasionally I’d hear a motorbike rumbling down the road late at night, but that was it.

By: merc

merc — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 23:34:08 +0000

It’s ALL true, I used to live in and now work at Mt Eden (I commute from W.O.W.) Being able – then, to go up to Odeon and (no fluffies!) introduce F&S to table top Defender was well, mind blowing. I used to live next door to a certain gang leader, his driver would periodically park the limo in our driveway when picking up the ____’s daughter or what have you.
We used to call our street Lithium Road. Our house used to be a brothel and a young one many years ago apparently died falling down the stairs, it was haunted. One Christmas Eve my next door gang (through the wall) were bound and assaulted by a crazed ex-con, I remember leading the Police to the door and telling them the perp said they were armed, the cop obviously didn’t hear me as he strode into the room as I winced right behind him, waiting for the BANG!
The Lithium Roaders, a strange gang.

By: Mrs Smith

Mrs Smith — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:23:03 +0000

Today fluffies, tomorrow coke. Fluffies are the gateway drug.