Cuba Street
Interactive map of Cuba Street | |
| Length | 0.925 km (0.575 mi) |
|---|---|
| Location | Te Aro, Wellington |
| Postal code | 5012 |
| Coordinates | 41°17′37″S 174°46′32″E / 41.2935°S 174.7756°E |
| Upper end | Mount Cook |
| Lower end | Te Ngākau Civic Square |
| Other | |
| Known for | Contributions to New Zealand's culture |
Cuba Street is a city street in Wellington, New Zealand. Among the best known and most popular streets in the city, the Cuba precinct has been labelled Wellington's cultural centre, and is known for its high-per-capita arts scene.
Cuba Street and the surrounding area (known as the Cuba Street Precinct), known for its bohemian nature, boasts scores of cafés, op-shops, music venues, restaurants, record shops, bookshops, heritage architecture of various styles, and a general "quirkiness" that has made it one of the city's most popular tourist destinations. A youth-driven location, the partly pedestrianised Cuba Street is frequented by shoppers and city-dwellers year round.
Developed at the point of colonisation on Te Āti Awa land, Cuba Street runs south from the CBD of Wellington in the inner city, and was originally full of very basic homes built into the forest, such as "the Old Shebang". Contrary to common assumption that the street is named after Cuba, it is actually named after an early New Zealand Company settler ship, the Cuba, which arrived in Wellington Harbour on 3 January 1840. Many coffee shops and restaurants take this misinterpretation in their stride, having names and colours that reference the island nation of Cuba. The street's historic buildings, spanning Edwardian, Art Deco, and various weatherboard styles, were completed from the 19th–20th centuries. From the 1960s to the early 1980s, the street became the red light district of Wellington, and a sign of solidarity against New Zealand's laws making homosexual acts illegal until 1986. The street's rainbow crossing and icons of local drag queen and activist Carmen Rupe commemorate this.
The area is divided into distinct parts—Lower, Central and Upper Cuba—that have different architectural styles. The middle section of Cuba Street between Dixon Street and Ghuznee Street is a pedestrian mall, and further up the street there are more independent shops. Part of the large inner-city suburb of Te Aro, Cuba Street has become increasingly the home of Wellington's arts culture since the 1960s, and has been called the city's "creative heart".