Re: Re: Developments in Cork

I can’t believe the vision that some people have for the cities of Ireland. Some day, the entire country will be a patchwork intricately planned and badly executed redevelopment schemes. Why anybody thinks that Grand Parade and Patrick Street are anything other than abject failures is beyond me. The paving stones are absolutely revolting, and the idiotic pieces of street furniture make the place look like a whore who’s been all gussied up by a retard. Oliver Plunkett Street is similarly revolting; especially given the incomprehensible presence of those silver and neon bollard things. The whole street should have been properly pedestrianized with either Grafton Street style red paving, or golden paving stones like the ones recently installed in Bedford Row in Limerick. What is there now looks cheap and tatty.

I happen to think that the two most interesting features of Washington Street are the Kino and Mannix. They both look kind of out-there and spontaneous in an otherwise awfully drab street. If anything should be demolished it’s all those 19th buildings that look like warehouses. When I refer to Mannix, I particularly refer to the way you can see the outline of the stairs on the building next to it. It’s so completely surreal right in the middle of a city that it looks like a work of art. I think it should stay, just so that Cork has at least one thing that isn’t totally middle of the road blandness.