Re: Re: O’ Connell Street, Dublin

@StephenC wrote:

Well lets not count our chickens just yet Graham. This is the terrace today:
A couple of things to note. The big canvas advertising that went up in the last couple of days on the front to add to Nokia et al. The shocking pink shopfront of the new sew and mend business that opened last week (with no planning permission for shopfront changes). The refurbished shopfront of the former Elverys/then newsagent/now Max cafe.

Suffice to say, I think you’ll be waiting a while for your coordinated rusticated granite shopfronts along the full terrace.

The planning decision is messy. I reckon the condition that mentions the replicated Georgian shopfront to No. 34 is a cut and paste error by the planner. It may well be clarified in the Final Grant.

I think you overstate the significance of improving this terrace. It would be welcome to improve the terrace certainly, but as the humble postcard is in demise, I think its unlikely to radically alter people’s perceptions of our fine city.

Across the way, the new currency converters in 1 O’Connell Street has put up new signage – without planning.

I have to disagree with this. Maybe it’s just my obsession, but I think this terrace is the worst thing in the whole of Dublin city centre. It’s a combination of its prominent location and the egregiousness of its aesthetic crimes that does it for me. It’s supposed to be a gateway to O’Connell St, “the premier street of the nation”. What does it say about us as a country, then, that this is what the entrance to it looks like.

In fact it’s so important, that the city needs to provide a financial incentive to get that original brickwork exposed. That rendering of the corner building is a complete aesthetic disaster, regardless of how long it’s been there. It makes the whole area seem shabby and grey, and really drags down O’Connell St and Bachelors Walk. It should be removed, or at the very least painted over – but the former option is of course by far the more desirable.