Re: Re: Liffey Cable Cars – Pointless Gimmick or….

@Cute Panda wrote:

I have travelled fairly extensively and Dublin to me looks about as historic as Boston. There is little of the city over 200 years old. Most of the city centre starts around 1880’s onwards when you really look at it as a whole. Apart from a few churches here and there, Dublin does not feel much more overly historic than a lot of cities in the New World and I am talking Quebec, Savannah, Havana etc. Dublin also has a huge amount of late 20th trash buildings. Claiming Dublin is mainly a visually historic city is a bit like claiming that Irish is a living and vibrant language.

What I am pointing at is how it is not a city that can be labelled as being of one time. Its fabric has been built up and replaced over the years, but still shows traces of its past. I was arguing against your belief that only cities that are of some specific historical time period are somehow more important than others.

Your argument about the Irish language makes no sense to me. If I was to make comparisons between Dublin and a language I would not compare it to one that I felt to be dead. That is the very point I am making, Dublin is a living city, not one that is maintained to give the illusion of some specific time period. I am not disputing the construction of this cable car on the grounds that it will impact on older parts of the city, but that it will have a negative impact on the city as a whole.

I really do not see how these towers are anymore horrible than much of the 1960’s kitch which already lines the Liffey. What precisely would these towers visually ruin which has not already been ruined decades ago?

What 1960s kitch are you referring to? For many, it is the 1990s pastiche that is more of a problem.

If we have beautiful historic quays lining the Liffey I could understand the negative reaction these towers are inciting, but I really don’t get why so many people are horrified by this project to the level they are – except perhaps the old Oirish fear of anything new and unique. We are hardly an innovative or dynamic culture – we are the boiled cabbage eaters, the conservative clods on the fringes of Europe wagging his finger at anything which manifest from outside the pre-determind box we are all so comfortable locking ourselves into. As Joyce said “the centre of paralysis” and all that.

What, therefore, is the point of putting up a cable car that will overlook the quays if you dont seem to think they are of any visual or historic value in the first place?

I am not saying I do not respect people’s reasons for being so against the cable car idea, but I am amazed as the explosion of viceral repulsion it has unleashed on this normally well balanced forum. The same hostile reaction to this idea is no different than the residents groups and NIMBYs walking around the construction site of a 5 storey building with “NO SKYSCRAPERS HERE” scrawled on a sheet of cardboard looking and acting hysterical for no reason.

I genuinly don’t think this is NIMBYism. The reason that there is such an explosion against it on this forum is that posters here, who seem to be from all over Ireland and abroad, are thinking of its impact on Dublin as a whole, not simply in terms of their area. That is the difference between this and other projects. It is not an isolated project, it is one that has far reaching consequences for the entire city.

I am sorry, but I honestly have no idea what you saying here. I read it a few times and all I am getting is subjective analysis. You’re rationale in the above paragraph why this would not work in Dublin borders on a form of civic theology rather than a good argument against the cable car idea. You’ll have to do better than that.

Basically what I am saying is that I dont see why something should dominate an entire cityscape of Dublin that is of no real benefit to the city whatsoever. There is obviously some form of subjective analysis involved as it is based on my opinion, as your views are also.

In terms of doing something with the river, as already stated by Thomond Park, it is all dependent on the opening of the Port Tunnel. At that point a better analysis can be made of exactly what would benefit the river area of the city for both citizens and visitors alike.