O’ Connell Street, Dublin
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There are still so many things to be done on OConnell Street.. paving works aside. The JWT corner is also sorely in need of some proactive action by the Council. Its a disgrace, more so because it leads on to the premier shopping street of the city.
Its tsill hard to see what the street will be like on Friday. I had thought that lating the kerbing would have been completed so that at last most of the trenches could have been filled in. At the very least the median should be completed to allow the maximum amount of people on to the street.
As some sections near completion its worrying to see the amount of clutter and signage increasing. Why all those ugly signal boxes? Does every crossing really need that many lights? Has anyone even noticed the lump of (newly laid) pavement taken out outside Supermacs? (its a pool of water this morning… the Dark Pool) I imagine that the bus stops currently located on the Plaza will be relocated once the upper pavements are completed. And the kiosks, taxi shelter, bus shelters have all still to be put in. It we are not careful it will soon be impossible to see any of the fine new vistas on the street.
Can anyone clarify what the shops are going to do with that 1-2 metre strip in front of their shops ? Its covered in minging 50’s style glass and concrete and looks manky.
The amount of clutter around the street looks to have increased sharply indeed. I just hope they get everything sorted by Friday.
Judging from past repaving (Henry St etc) they’ll probably stay there. It depends on whether or not there is a cellar underneath. I agree they look terrible. They could at least be replaced and the new ones lit from below. The gallery on Pearse Street does this quite well with purple lighting.
I noticed today that the riot damaged signposts and in particular the scorched lampost, have been replaced. I hope the Saint Patrick’s Day Parade and festivities passes off well. Very cold, but dry is the weather outlook.
Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!
Yes so do I. 600 gardai hopefully should keep an eye on the troublemakers. There will be some trouble but any rioters would have to be asked – what are you rioting about this time, fool?
Gardai unveil major security operation for parade
From:ireland.com
Friday, 17th March, 2006More than 1,000 gardaà will be on duty in the Dublin today as part of a major St Patrick’s Day security operation.
People urged to drink sensibly and to be aware public is entitled to enjoy a peaceful weekend festival
Building material on O’Connell Street has been cleared away for the weekend in an effort to avoid the rioting surrounding the Love Ulster parade last month.
On that occasion paving slabs and other materials were broken up by rioters and thrown at gardaÃ. “We’ve spent a number of weeks planning the policing operation in conjunction with the festival committee, city council and various other agencies,” said Supt Kevin Donohoe of the Garda Press Office.
“We’ve probably never had the same level of demands as we’ll see this weekend. The full control of the day will rest with a senior officer who’ll be in our command centre in Pearse Street station.”
This chief superintendent would have access to footage from CCTV cameras all over the city and would, via radio, direct Garda resources into any areas where the need arose.
Good to see a little forward planning
The bare minimum of security personnel deployed for one of the most contentious events to happen in Dublin in recent times, and then 1,000 members of the force to contain the rampage of middle class parents and toddlers :rolleyes:. The reinforcements put in place for the parade are quite extraordinary: the Upper street has been completely cleared of materials and equipment – not a shred of building works left. All of the railings up there are also doubly reinforced for the day, with supporting ranks of rails linking the outer railings together in the middle every 5/6 metres:
Regarding the woeful JWT/Joe Walsh Tours corner hopefully some wheels are getting in motion as these men were surveying the corner just two weeks ago:
Have some more info on the corner buildings to post soon. But even above you can see the disgraceful state of the place, including the heritage shopfront just installed by Griffins who have taken over nearly every convenience store in the city centre. At least it’s marginally better than most of the rubbish we see nowadays.
Similarly the Come in and Visit sign is still alive and well (which surprising seems to date from the 1950s), as well as all the attendant crap of the JWT property. And of course the banned banner signs as popular as ever, and by no means confined to the Upper end.This is what Ulster Bank currently have to offer, concealing one of the thoroughfare’s finest and most prominent buildings just as international attention is brought to the street, and knowing full well it will have served its purpose by the time the authorities cop on to it and offer further time for its removal; receiving nothing but a slap on the wrist for their troubles.
No violence yet?
The reporters on the various evening channels were clearly disappointed. If things don’t hot up they will have to reset all the headlines and pompous articles about our inevitable doom from binging.;)
just look at this boging picture I took the other day… I have more but cant upload because of the limit.
They have to do something about the pavement
Good photos again Graham hilighting the sheer shoddiness.
It was great to see that the parade passed off well on Friday. It looked good on the telly despite the bad weather. The Brazillian samba girls who braved the cold were my hi-light. Their assets were frozen I’m sure. An anti-war demo passed off peacefully on Saturday as well. Hopefully the street will be nearly completed for the 1916 military parade in a months time. The works have lasted long enough.
By the way, isn’t the lord mayors coach is a superb piece of craftmanship, definitely a fairytale OTT baroque/roccoco wanderly wagon, but a feckin’ superb asset for the city and country. Good to see it maintained.
Given the unpaid nature of the position and the sheer quantum of work involved the coach is a real perk of the job.
Can anyone clarify what the shops are going to do with that 1-2 metre strip in front of their shops ? Its covered in minging 50’s style glass and concrete and looks manky.
@Maskhadov wrote:
They have to do something about the pavement
As you say, the glass in those pavement coverings is in poor condition. Alot of them are from earlier than the 1950s though. There seems to be an interesting variety of Iron companies responsible for making them: Tonge and Taggart of Dublin, St Pancras Ironworks of London and Brooks Thomas & Co Ltd of Dublin to name a few. I for one would be very disapointed to see any of them removed. The glass however, does need to be repaired.
Is there actually a plan on how to tackle undesiarable shopfronts and shop usages on the street? It seems no progress has been made on that front. Also does anyone know when the kiosks are going in?
Thanks
@TLM wrote:
Is there actually a plan on how to tackle undesiarable shopfronts and shop usages on the street? It seems no progress has been made on that front. Also does anyone know when the kiosks are going in?
Thanks
Yes there is a plan, i found it before on the council’s website, but i don’t think it’s quite that simple. One can’t simply order someone to take down something if it was put up with planning permission/or more probably in this case before planning permission existed! Thus with respect to the advertisements i would expect that the council would have to buy out the contract. I would imagine that a similar situation exists with the shop frontage and signage, where the council would have to recompense the owner of the business for the intrusion, etc etc.
My suspicion is that the council is taking a longer view of the situation and waiting for the full effect of the road improvements. What i mean is that the council thinks that the whole street is going to regenerate thanks to the immiment expansion of Arnotts , the renovation of clerys, the red line luas, roches , ilac ,etc etc. It expects much of the businesses to change or expand , AND crucially when this happens and new planning permission is sought it can then apply conditions (removal of ugly signage).
You will probably despair at at this , it suggests that it could take eons to happen. I am not so sure however. I think that O’Connell street today stands at exactly the same transition point as grafton street when it was pedestrianised.
While the papers talk of a shopping frenzy society , the reality is quite different.It’s not that the rich are shopping like crazy , it’s that everyone now has jobs and is shopping normally. So like the housing “crisis” there is also a shop “crisis”. How this relates to O’Connell street is this: the is a huge pent up demand for a large increase in retail in dublin. And the place that makes most sense for this development as o’connell street and environs. The carlton site will be redone in the next year or two . The Eircom building is vacant. The fingal offices too.The royal dublin hotel is also mooted to be redone. The irish times building will soon be vacant and possibly turned into retail. And as mentioned above a huge amount of money is pouring into henry street and parnell street.
Granted that it has taken a long time to redo o’connell street ( there is a good reason for this, firstly there was a lot of archealogical excavation to be done – sackville street was once very narrow . and secondly all the utilities have been redone) but mark my words you won’t recognise the street in a few years such will be the change in it’s fortunes.
As for the kiosks i don’t know , but the whole thing will be finished soon enough!
@a boyle wrote:
As for the kiosks i don’t know , but the whole thing will be finished soon enough!
Just in time for the RPA to dig it all up for Luas line BX and then Metro! 😀 Of course in the grand scheme of things it’s not a problem that we have the money to build mass transit systems, just seems an awful pity that all the work will be torn up so soon after completion.
I hope you’re right about the street being on the cusp of something great. It’s still an awful looking place with all those tatty cheap looking shops. They’re so bad that even the later architecture of BHS looks good in comparison to the older buildings which have been defiled with the tat.
@murphaph wrote:
They’re so bad that even the later architecture of BHS looks good in comparison to the older buildings which have been defiled with the tat.
The BHS on Princes Street Edinburgh is a far superior building; has nayone any images for comparison?
These routes cannot rip up O’Connell Street, they just can’t 🙁
*puts fingers in ears* lalalalalala….Yes, all of that sums up the state of affairs on O’Connell Street rather well a boyle. The Council are relying on the knock-on effect of the public domain works to stimulate commerical activity, force undesirable uses off the street and encourage aesthetic improvements to properties – which is acceptable up to a point. But the lack of even basic maintenance on some of the most prominent buildings on the thoroughfare eight years after the IAP was published simply is not – this basic area more than anything requires immediate attention.
Regarding signage and uses, the extent to which the CC can enforce retrospective planning I’m not quite sure – perhaps others can enlighten us. Certainly the highly comprehensive Special Planning Control Scheme legislation appears to give the CC a lot of clout: “Where non-desirable uses continue to operate in a manner and form that detract from the quality and character of the street, the planning authority may seek to enter into negotiations with the relevant owner/occupier. In this regard and depending on the specific circumstances of each case, the planning authority may require the owners/occupiers to either implement a programme of works to eliminate the problems associated with such a use – or to cease operating the use.”
“may”? “may seek”?
Regarding the potential on O’Connell Street for lots of new retail, there is a problem. The units on the street are for the most part miniscule in size, arguably even smaller than other areas of the city thanks to the almost system-built post-1916/1922 reconstruction. Even Clerys cannot expand on the site they have without considerable difficulty. Only Fingal and Findlater offer any real potential in this respect, with the possibility perhaps for a unit amalgamation within Hammam Buildings also. It’d be great of more properties would make use of their first and second floors for retail – most are just dingy offices, storage or small service providers.
Agreed about the basements of Upper west – they’re in a bad way but are certainly worthy of retention. The problem with them is the manky concrete surround that most of them have, left exposed alongside the crisp new paving. If this can be dealt with, and the glass and iron? frames restored, a valauble part of the history of the Upper street can be retained. All of these basement panels are fascinating remnants of Gardiner’s fashionable housing that lined the Mall along here – exposed Georgian townhouse basements long filled in as the street gradually became more and more commercial; basements that still sit beneath what are often merely superficially altered original houses. No other part of the street has these lightwells save the odd one on Upper east, notably the magnificent Gresham concrete set edged in luxurious marble.
As late as 1900 you can still see most of the basements and railings still intact at street level:
Here’s a few images of BHS, Princess Street in Edinburgh…
Bloody awful building – like a lot of stuff on the street.
Ah here lads, was in city centre the other day and can’t even cross the street, except for a gap at Abbey St. Its awful! All the people milling around, and every day hoping it’ll be cleared up. how long is this going on for? How can a single street take so long to be redeveloped? When is it due to be complete? I denounce this overlong farce.
Thanks for that DJM,
I quite like it and think it represents a good example of its time; shame about the location however.
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