The Auckland Harbour Bridge turns 60 today. Don Rowe revisits some of its finest moments to celebrate.

Sixty years ago today, then-governor general Lord Cobham was chauffeured into the Northcote Toll Plaza, walked past a Navy guard of honour in his big bowler hat, and officially opened the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Aucklanders lined the streets in that weird/creepy 20th century way to watch a procession of cars, trucks and horse-drawn wagons make the first crossing. There was even a float shaped like a carton of eggs.

It took 1,000 men four years to build the bridge at a cost of more than £7.5m. The four-lane bridge reduced the journey to the North Shore by 50 kilometres, fast-tracking the pilgrimage from Mac’s Brew Bar in Takapuna down to Swashbucklers, or whatever the 1950s equivalent was. But because the government of the day ignored recommendations for six lanes and pedestrian access in the name of austerity, the miracle bridge had reached capacity within a decade. And so, in the late 60s, four Japanese-designed ‘Nippon clip-on’ lanes were installed, sans pedestrian access. The bridge remains largely the same in 2019, once again in the name of the all mighty dollar, but change may finally be on the horizon. Today, 170,000 vehicles cross the bridge every single day, but the total traffic volume has been static since 2006 – this is because the fucking thing is full. Again.

As well as tabling a second Waitematā crossing, last year, after literal decades of campaigning, the government announced they would fund and deliver a walking and biking crossing to the tune of $67m. Jolisa Gracewood wrote an incredible breakdown for what that means here on the Spinoff. But 60th birthdays, like funerals, are a time for looking back, not forward. Come with me as we revisit some of the Harbour Bridge’s defining moments.

The Bungee

Shortly before being accosted by Drew Neemia and being doused in L&P, but a bit after stealing a fundraiser chocky bar from a school in Karaka, a tiny 16-year-old “Justin Bieber” was seen plummeting towards the frothy waters of the Waitematā. “This isn’t me being scared,” he said, holding his trembling hands aloft, before leaping from the bridge with the piercing falsetto screech that made him famous.

But Justin Bieber is neither the only, nor most important celebrity, to manu off the bridge: New Zealand’s first couple celebrated their first date a few years later by hurling themselves off the AHB, as captured at the time by cub reporter Alex Casey on burgeoning youth blog the Spinoff:

“[Matilda] showed that she can be an edgy (beautiful) risk taker (beautiful), committing to the bungy and screaming “FUUUUCK” which was down-to-earth (beautiful).”

The birth of Johnny Danger, stuntman

Long before the Danger Swig was being performed everywhere from the NRL to the NFL, and a lager bearing his face was filling the gullets of youth the nation over, Johnny Danger Bennett was just a still-pissed dude on his way home from town when he climbed onto the roof of a taxi crossing the harbour bridge. The stunt made the national news and Bennett’s feigned apologies made him a star, albeit a grand out of pocket and disqualified from driving.

“If you drink and taxi surf,” he said, “you’re a bloody idiot”.

The Devil Dared Me To

The culmination of cult show Back of the Y was their 2007 movie The Devil Dared Me To, which followed New Zealand stuntman Randy Campbell in the lead-up to his greatest feat – jumping the Cook Strait in a rocket car.

“For years we milked one simple idea: ‘the stunt is about to go horribly wrong,’” Chris Stapp told Salient. “We decided to focus on Randy’s journey to the pinnacle of the New Zealand stunt world and the tragic consequences when stunts fuck up.”

Campbell’s arc has him fall in love with a one-legged stuntwoman, and together the pair attempt a warm-up jump of the Waitemata Harbour. The stunt is sabotaged, however, and Campbell’s lover is burned to a crisp.

“The whole thing was great fun,” Matt Heath said. “The scale of it was just twenty steps up from anything we’ve done before. We even got the Auckland harbour bridge closed down so we could film a massive explosion.”

This Acid Casualty

Last year, news broke that a man in the midst of a bad trip had leapt from a moving vehicle halfway across the Harbour Bridge, tumbled down the road, regained his feet and disappeared over the side, falling 43 metres to the water.

“All of a sudden, the back door of the car in front of us swings open and next thing I see is a guy stepping out and rolling down the side of the lane, just missing me as I hit the brakes,” a witness told Stuff.

 The man survived, however, swimming for shore “as if he was in a pool going for a summer dip,” the witness said.

The Protest

Sick of the government’s total inability to do something recommended 50 years in the fucking past (i.e. build the SkyPath), up to 2,000 protestors forced the closure of northbound lanes for an hour after forcing a police barricade and spilling onto the road. Police said they were “disappointed the protestors broke their word”, demonstrating a uniquely New Zealand take on the idea of protest. A similar march also planned for this month but was cancelled after the police said: “Nah lol”.

The Limes

It took two months from the launch of Lime scooters in Auckland before someone fanged across the bridge on one. While everyone else was breaking their teeth and collarbones, packing emergency wards the city over, one solitary patriot made the kilometre-long journey across the Waitemata dressed in what appeared to be casual business wear. The man went north, hugging the left-most lane, buffeted by wind on an otherwise sunny day.

Earlier this month, around 7pm on the 15th, a copycat rider was spotted heading over the bridge and onwards into the inky night. Police are yet to locate the man, and some say he’s still out there, heading north, safe in anonymity, never to cross the bridge again.   

Happy Birthday, Harbour Bridge, whether in our cars or on top of them – you really bring us together.

What makes a piece of art ‘Indian’? What makes it ‘English’? Aarti Bajaj, director of new theatre production Meera, unravels our prejudices around art and what makes people put art into boxes.

Every time I hear someone mention that our show Meera is an ‘Indian thing’, or just for an Indian audience, I have to ask: when they come across a show like My Fair Lady or Beauty and The Beast, do they say it’s a ‘white’ show?

Just like those are stories, so is Meera. It just so happens that the story of Meera follows a princess from the 16^th century in a Northern part of India. But that doesn’t mean it’s a story just for Indians, any more than Aladdin –being an unspecific Middle Eastern story – makes it just for people from the unspecific Middle East. It’s just because the story of Aladdin is something that people have heard, thanks to Disney, and are familiar with. People like familiarity, but trying something new and different only pushes us out of our comfort zones. In turn, that broadens our perspective.

Art varies depending on which part of the world it comes from. Brazil has samba, China has dragon dance, Cuba has salsa, and so on and so forth. But it’s all art. Art can be a powerful, transformative life-changing experience. But when it’s categorized in different boxes and caged within limited boundaries, it paralyses its ability to enchant the souls of audiences – especially if they think it’s not for them.

Today, the world is a global village, and it’s about time that we start to feel like internationalists within it. People are migrating all around the world today. Migration not only brings people of different races, colours and ethnicities across borders, it also brings their food, their culture, and their art. Human life becomes richer, there’s more to learn, more to share and more to love.

A daughter of an Indian friend of mine, who is only six years old, was told by her non-Indian friend at school that she could never play the princess in the school play because she’s not fair-skinned. If a six-year-old has to have a conversation like this, what kind of unknown divide and hierarchy is being grown at a subconscious level in these little brains, which have obviously been grasped at from the communities around them? It’s no wonder that we have such an intense divide among grown-ups.

This incident inspired me: I have to break the rules, that’s what real art does, right? When art breaks the rules, it starts a compelling conversation.

And so I created Meera in the most globally palatable form I could. I weaved theatre, music, dance, and state-of-the-art technology to showcase the scale of the production. I took a colour-blind casting approach so I could create an inclusive environment. For example, while Meera is a story of an Indian princess who falls in love with an immortal God, the characters are played by actors from a variety of ethnicities: Indian, Caucasian, Māori, Samoan, Sri Lankan and Filipino, among others.

Even when I was choosing the cast from these different backgrounds, the only thing on my mind was that when the story is happening on stage, it should be so powerful, so potent, that the audience doesn’t care what colour artist is performing in front of them. It’s not an Indian story, it’s not a white story, it’s a story for everyone.

We have eight different dance genres which are performed in the show. Indian classical and Indian contemporary may be new to audiences, but other forms are more familiar to the western world such as ballet, jazz, contemporary, aerial, pole, and belly dancing.

Above all, the entire production is in English in order to reach a wider audience. So again, I ask: why do people continue to limit Meera as being ‘just for an Indian audience’?

There’s a lack of awareness and knowledge about how many rich cultural histories, artforms and stories are present in New Zealand and Australia. Not only can these be enjoyed by everyone, but they can also be useful in informing our perspectives about the rest of the world. People’s lack of interest in trying something different only strengthens their preconceived assumptions about a culture or art form. This way of thinking limits our human capacity for acceptance and exploration.

We live in the best of times: knowledge, awareness and education are at our fingertips. Let’s not stay ignorant anymore. Through Meera, we want to contribute to a better, more inclusive society, we want to break stereotypes and we want to disrupt mundane mindsets. By doing so, the arts will grow and the world will grow.

Let’s get out of the box by stepping out of our usual habits.

Meera shows at the ASB Waterfront Theatre from May 31 – June 2. You can buy tickets here.