A new digital story map celebrating the life and legacy of Carmen Rupe has been launched online, inviting visitors to step into the fantastical world of one of Wellington’s most iconic trailblazers.
The story map, produced by Wellington City Archives in collaboration with Walk Tours NZ and PrideNZ, draws on material held by Wellington City Archives alongside oral histories and other published sources.
Carmen Rupe’s Wellington: Walk with a Legend, traces Carmen’s Wellington — a city she transformed with glamour, grit and unapologetic pride — and brings together archival records, recordings, ephemera and community memory in a layered digital experience.
Carmen Rupe (1936–2011) — entertainer, businesswoman and 1977 Wellington mayoral candidate — helped reshape the city between the late 1960s and 1980s, running a dozen venues including a cabaret, coffee lounges, tearooms, second-hand curio shops and other nightlife businesses. Her venues offered safe harbour and employment opportunities to Wellington’s Rainbow LGBTQIA+ communities at a time when discrimination was widespread, and both homosexual activity and sex work were criminal activities.
Carmen’s civic legacy remains visible across Wellington, from her 1977 mayoral campaign through to landmark public tributes, including Carmen’s pedestrian crossing lights launched by former Mayor Celia Wade-Brown, the Rainbow Crossing launched on Carmen’s birthday by former Mayor Justin Lester, and a tribute seat unveiled by former Mayor Andy Foster on the corner of Cuba and Vivian Streets.
The “Walk with…” map concept was a pilot project for Wellington City Archives, designed to help activate community collaboration and engagement.
Wellington City Archives Manager, Adrian Humphris says the archive wanted the map concept and tagline to be adaptable.
“It opens up the possibility to create a range of heritage maps in the future, spotlighting other people, movements, communities and eras in Wellington’s rich and diverse history,” he said.
Wellington City Archives holds a wide range of material relating to Wellington’s social history — including architectural plans, correspondence, photographs and ephemera — that allow stories like Carmen’s to be told with depth and authenticity. Much of this material is now digitised and available online.
“Since 2024, when we reached 20 million pages and images being publicly accessible, we’ve been working hard to surface and promote this kete of knowledge to local communities,” says archivist, Prayash Chhetri.
“In Carmen’s case, the archival documents create a level of context and depth that highlights just how resourceful and extraordinary she was.”
The story map also showcases how new tools can support heritage storytelling, including the use of generative AI to create some map elements and interpret exterior building plans held in the archive.
Roger Smith from Walk Tours NZ says: “We’ve used AI to create a consistent visual feel by generating chalk sketches of the map locations. In one case, for Carmen’s Cottage in Hataitai, we used a historic architectural blueprint from the archive to render an artistic impression of the house.”
Gareth Watkins from Walk Tours NZ adds: “More broadly, we’ve been using generative AI for some time as a collaboration tool, helping us research, edit and proof our heritage walk tour content.”
Fittingly, Carmen’s story map is being launched to coincide with next month’s reopening of the newly renovated Wellington Central Library, Te Matapihi ki te Ao Nui. The north-west corner of the library occupies the same geographic location as Carmen’s celebrated The Balcony / Le Balcon nightclub in the 1970s, on the corner of Victoria and Harris Streets.
