Ahiahi mārie, welcome to The Spinoff Daily. Today on The Spinoff: Can Sandringham’s South Asian flavour survive gentrification? Whatever happened to polyprops? And Gone By Lunchtime chews over a couple of big overseas elections. But first: Duncan Greive hails the return of the shoebox apartment.
“In 2005, I was only dimly aware of the furore, of the disgust shoebox apartments aroused. In 2005, I was living in one. Named the Stanford, it had sprung up in 2004 on Nelson Street, where it still stands today. It’s just up the road from the Harvard apartments, both built by a developer named Conrad who clearly thought that naming these thin, cheap apartments after Ivy League institutions would confer borrowed prestige. That seemed objectively funny then, and the joke has aged well, I think. My apartment was near the top of the block and did have expansive harbour views. Otherwise, it was pretty rough. It consisted of two bedrooms, one big enough for a queen, the other for a single. There was a tiny bathroom with a laundry cupboard, a tiny kitchen-dining-lounge and a slightly scary tiny balcony. The whole thing topped out at 41 square metres, or a little over half the size of the new standards. Which is to say that by the time I had moved in, it would have been illegal to build the Stanford apartments.”
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Can Sandringham’s South Asian flavour survive gentrification? Courtenay Place is dead. Long live Courtenay Precinct. Here is the (new) news: ThreeNews makes its news debut Labour wins big in UK election just as England keeps winning in Euros
Henry Cooke, former chief political reporter at Stuff and current London-based freelance journalist, joins Toby Manhire to chew over the recent exit poll and electoral results out of France and Britain in a special Euro-vote edition of Gone By Lunchtime.
Rainbow warmth and garish colours: When did stripy polyprop disappear? Duncan Greive: The big tech bargaining bill is not about Google New to streaming: What to watch on Netflix NZ, Neon and more this week
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I lived in a shoebox apartment. I’m glad they’re coming back
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