Reply To: National Photographic Archive

Two snippets of info – it was built in 1901, and to the tip of the roof was 9 storeys.
Also it consumed two Georgian properties.

I wouldn’t advocate rebuilding it, not only because it shouldn’t have been built in the first place, but it would be rather fantastical and would take more away from the vista of domes and cupolas of this stretch than it would contribute.

It was nothing short of disgraceful that the Corporation let institutions carve up Westmoreland St and Sackville in the 19th century – and it only happened after the WSC disbanded.
It was the worst planning that the city has ever experienced in my view – even worse than Fitzwilliam St, and certainly on a par with O’ Cll Bridge House. This two streets define the very character of the city.
Westmoreland looks cheap and messy now, and parts of O’ Connell little better. The simple classical Georgians are rubbished next to the elaborate Victorian piles.
If The WSC development had survived up to 1916 on O’ Cll, it would have been a simple matter of rebuilding them, and would have been substantially cheaper than the unified plans proposed by the Corpo and laughed at by property owners.
They weren’t just bad at planning in the 20th century, the Corpo couldn’t even manage what little had been planned already.