Rudman's city: Cup land now a 'harbour' in naming rights reshuffle

American Express is rather put out by my criticism of its unilaterally renaming the Viaduct Basin, American Express Harbour.

It claims Auckland City was in on the deal too. And so it was. But that doesn't make the new name any more acceptable.

What bugs me is the use of the word harbour. The piece of real estate that Amex has obtained naming rights for from the city council, via Team New Zealand, is a stretch of land.

It is basically the land known during the last challenge as the America's Cup Village. No water is involved.

I checked this with city chief executive Bryan Taylor and he confirms "they've only got the naming rights on the land-based area."

It seems, though, that village was not a suitably grand and expansive territory to attach Amex's name to.

No doubt the PR and financial woes surrounding their involvement last time round in the American Express NZ Cup Village had wiped any appeal the word might have had.

So along came the much more impressive-sounding word "harbour."

In the run-up to this, Team New Zealand's literature had already begun talking of something called the America's Cup Harbour. Presumably Amex decided to take it over as its own.

In so doing, it has gone beyond the bounds of the naming rights, which are restricted to the shore. Say harbour and one's mind immediately thinks of an enclosed piece of sea.

The Oxford English Dictionary says it has had that effect on English-speaking people since the year 1205.

In other words, Amex, by its use of the word, has annexed a stretch of sea to which it has no rights.

Mr Taylor concedes as much when he says that official city planning documents will retain the old names.

A change of name is nothing new for the area in question.

Tom Hutchins, of Remuera, recalls that in his boyhood, from the late 1920s to the late 1930s, locals called it Kauri Bay or City Bay. He lived nearby at 2A Nelson St and had a wonderful playground across Fanshawe St on the old Nelson St wharf.

In those days the Western Viaduct had not been built and "the old paddle-steamer Lyttelton used to pull huge rafts of logs into the timber mills alongside the seaward side of Fanshawe St." At night he went to sleep listening to the sounds of the spars and rigging moving on the scows moored at the wharf and in the bay.

The name Kauri Bay was used by some of the locals because of the Kauri Timber Company mill that dominated the city end of the bay.

"More significantly, launchmen and fishermen who used the services of the marine engineer Peter Smith, whose workshop was just a couple of doors up Nelson St from our house, called it City Bay, or The City Bay." So did Smith, "who knew the waterfront well."

City Bay was the working bay, home to fishing boats and scows, as opposed to St Mary's Bay further west, anchorage and repair site for private yachts and launches.

"As for American Express Harbour, it sounds a shoddy name to me. Where's our sense of history?"

A quick flick through old files shows that Mr Hutchins' boyhood was a time of major change in City Bay.

Beginning in 1886, the Auckland Harbour Board had begun filling in adjacent Freeman's Bay. By 1901, Victoria Park had been formed. By 1917, the reclamation had extended north of the park over Fanshawe St and out to sea.

In 1929, the decision was taken to link the city side of the port with a viaduct across the entrance to what Mr Hutchins knew as City Bay, to the reclaimed land further west. The plan included filling in about half the bay.

Reports refer to the area as Freeman's Bay Basin and Western Basin. The name Viaduct Basin followed, once the link and its novel moving bridge were completed. But a naval hydrographic map published in the harbour board's 1971 centennial publication labels the basin Freemans Bay.

In the past year or two, Auckland City has added to the confusion by renaming it Viaduct Harbour. As recently as last Friday, a council press release about the Viaduct Advisory Board was still referring to the Viaduct Harbour.

This despite Amex's claim that it is now "officially" the American Express Harbour. I for one will stick with Viaduct Harbour. It's a good descriptive name.

It's also my way of saying our geographical place names should not be available to the highest bidder.