Created byLeo MorelDescription Photographer Leo Morel has become best known in Upper Hutt for his 'Streetscape' series, in which he photographed all the shop fronts and sections along Main Street between Pine Avenue and Logan Street.Date range1948Notes No information is known about the background of this project and his reasons for undertaking it. There is also no recorded information about the date on which these pictures were taken. On the basis of various evidence this has generally been ascribed by the Archive as having been sometime between 1947 and 1950. However local historian Don McLeod has suggested a more precise dating of early 1948. His argument for this is as follows:
"From the pictures, work on the Dunlop reservoir has started, but so far there is no reservoir visible; the year must be 1947-1948. There is one Father Christmas picture in a Hazelwoods window, and none in any other shop, so Christmas must be over. Both theatres advertise films for Saturday, and their titles ('An Ideal Husband' and 'Suspense', both made in 1947) are not mentioned in any surviving 'Upper Hutt Leader'. There are no 'Leaders' surviving for most of 1948, and the Upper Hutt theatres did not advertise in the 'Dominion' and 'Evening Post', so there is no way of finding when the films were shown. The films for Saturdays December 27 and January 3 are known, so the date must be after that. The street is almost bare, and almost all the shops are shut.
Conclusion: a Saturday or Sunday, early in 1948."QuantityThere are 26 photos on the North" i.e west side of Main Street (numbers 7 & 23 are missing from the sequence) and 25 photographs on the "South" ie. East side (missing number 5). The photographs have also been stitched together in two sequences. Location[1]
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Collection summaryPhotographer Leo Morel's 'Streetscape' series
