Story: City images

Auckland has long seen itself as a collection of towns and villages – the likes of Devonport, Henderson, Onehunga and Howick – rather than a single metropolis. Its city centre has therefore not exercised the pulling power in city life that, for instance, Wellington’s core has. Marti Friedlander captured this image of children at play on a Ponsonby street in 1971. Documentary photographers began recording city life in the 1960s.