CHANGE IN NAPIER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20841, 7 April 1931, Page 10

CHANGE IN NAPIER.

/ RESTORING THE CITY. SPIRIT OF THE PEOPLE. , MUCH BUSINESS ACTIVITY. [TOIL OF ARMY OF WORKERS. ; Napier to-day is tho strangest city in the Dominion. To enter it by night is an unforgettable experience. An impressionist painter would depict its ruins silhouetted in fantastic shapes in the light of a thousand garish lamps, by whose aid a thousand human beings toil unceasingly at a thousand mysterious tasks. Such a picture would symbolise energy nnd hope in every stroke of the brush and might bear the label, "Reconstruction: An Impression of Napier after the Earthquake." Last /, Christmas the traveller found Napier one of the most beautiful cities in New Zealand; two months ago disaster wrecked its buildings and made it a scene of desolation: to-day its streets are thronged with returned refugees, feverishly restoring their abandoned homes, and the /devastated area, a few weeks back a deserted waste, now resounds to the swing of pick and hammer, as an army of 'workers busily bring order out of chaos. On tho night of February 3 a group of peoplp, huddled fearfully together in a tent on tho Parade, cast their eyes despairingly on the burning town and spoke with bated breath of the future. "This is the end of Napier!" was the unanimous verdict. "You will never get anyone to live here again." Exactly two months later the four men in that party were w(irking 12 hours a day, falling over each other in the scramble to get, their businesses going again, and tho two women, who had cried quietly in tho corner of the tent, now shop daily in Clive Square and sleep unperturbed at night in their own homes. So much for the passing mood engendered by unexpected calamity. The Changing Scene.

To wnflk along Hastings and Emerson Streets to-day makes one ashamed of one's first feelings of despair. Were wo ever guilty of such ill-advised hopelessness? Why /lid we not predict that in two months people would be rushing to Napier ty open up business, that the place would be over-run with commercial travellers selling their wares like hot cakes to greedy shopkeepers, that the settlers, fof miles around would (lock to the. town as they never did before, and that a /tourist trade would open up surpassing tlio palmiest days? No; the disaster was so overwhelming at the time that it /destroyed ono's sense of proportion and weakened the power of prophecy. No sooner had one shopkeeper, more fortunate, perhaps, than the rest, repaired the damrtge to his shop and showed a placard, " Business as Usual," than there was a wild scramble to follow suit. There is nothing like private enterprise as a confidence-restorer. One shopkeeper opened business in the undamaged back room of his shop; 20 others did the same. One professional man built himself an oflice out of wobd on the site of a demolished building; io others did the same. One boardiiighouse keeper put out a notice reading, "Open since the quake"; and there was an immediate rush of boardinghouse keepers, waitresses and parlourmaids back to Napier. One draper exhibited bis goods behind a window of wide-mesh wire-netting; 50 other shopkeepers 4lid the same. One hotelkeeper built himself a temporary bar out of wood and half-a-dozen others also built temporary bars. One fruiterer sold his apples and pears on the pavement; a dozen others did the same. Where one man showed the way /a hundred others stumbled over each other in their huriy to compete. In another place and at another time it would have applied ludicrous.

Luxury At An Hotel. There is still a hotel or two standing in Napier and it is possible to have a comfortable bed, a bath with hot and cold water and a good hot meal, served, if you like, with olives and savouries, cocktails and liquers. You will notice nothing earthquaky " about the lounge, the writ-ing-roomior the booking office, but up in your bedroom pieces of plaster are still banging precariously from the ceiling and a new full-length mirror has been ordered for the wardrobe.. There is a notich on the wall where the washstand fell and another, much higher up, where the electric light globe smashed itself to pieces. The women have come hack to Napier. The town no longer resembles a soldiers' barracks with a preponderance of men. Hound the community shops in Clive Square, where you can buy anything from a packet of grass seed to a £IBO radio-gramophone, may be seen, any time of the day, the prettiest girls in Ilawke's Bay, refreshingly contrasted, iu their light summer frocks, with the drab working suits of the men, whose occupations take them mostly into the brick-strewn ruins.

Echoes at Night. Willi the return of the women and children Juu come laughter. One seldom heard it rti that terrible week, now seemingly so distant. The porter who takes your luggage at 'he hotel entrance smiles hopefully, the shopgirl who sells you cigarettes hcams encouragingly, and at a street corner you actually hear a hearty roar of laughter. from being a city of the Napier has become a city oi noise and uninterrupted activity. At night its streets an? ablaze with electric light, the hollow shells that were once its proudest buildings echu to the blow of hammer on wood and nail, for although the work of demolition and clearing ceases at nightfall, ov.ners and occupiers of / damaged pronnsus, and men working on contract, continue their labours far into the night. .Motor Irallic is thicker in the streets than ever .1 was before the disaster and sheet sounds do not cnaxqr until well after midnight Hope and confidence, youth and beauty are returning to Napier and steadiiv pushing aside the unwelcome signs of <ho city's ordeal. Nothing can now damp the ardour and determination of its citizens to rebuild the town. Moreover the old rivalry between Napier and Hustings is lifting its head agam, spurn,, g both towns on to ,-eneued prosperity Only aftyfr nudnight, when sleep at last overtakes its overworked toilers, does one really appreciate the colossal task before these unbroken spirits. Then, when the moon casts its distorting beams over the sleeping town, from one's bedroom winc.ow thieve roves over a'descrt or crumb ling brick and mortar, rusting iron arid charred wood, in the midst of which lone chimneys and bent iron columns stretch grotesquely heavenward. Only then does I lly ', liow long and laborious must be the final process of reliabilita