Thistle Hall 1907 - 2007 - 100 Years of Community

Thistle Hall Board of Trustees, 2008. 70 pages

This publication celebrates the rich history of Thistle Hall, now 100 years of age. located at 293-295 Cuba Street, it is one of the few public halls remaining in central city Wellington. Originally built to store groceries and tea, the function of the hall has since been reinvented many times over: as a meeting place, a dancehall, a venue for gigs, a playground, a movie theatre, a classroom, a studio, and now a vibrant community centre and public art gallery. For one hundred years its totara floor has withstood jigs and reels, children's tricycles, star-jumpers, head-bangers, even earthquakes. Within the ever-changing landscape of Upper Cuba Street and its surrounds, Thistle Hall's existence has been tenuous. Since the late 1920s, the hall has risked demolition. Its preservation today is largely due to a group of local women who volunteered to take care of it, clean it and hire it out in the 1980s and 90s. These women ensured that Thistle Hall continued to be available to its community for a minimal fee. In turn, use of the hall reinforced the Wellington City Council's belief that this was a community centre worth keeping.