O’ Connell Street, Dublin
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@Alek Smart wrote:
A brief stroll along the Street last evening revealed little more than what appears to be a form of steel pole nursery.
ROFL 😀
But seriously, I agree with most of the sentiments already expressed by Jimg, G Hickey et al… After 4 years in the making it is most underwhelming.:(
What I really cannot understyand is the way OC Bridge has been left out of the scheme entirely:confused:
Surely the bridge should have been critical to the brief. Instead there is the retrospectively painted ghost lines on the road north-bound, almost as if it is intentional to create the impression that it is a check-point between North and South sides :rolleyes:
Where was the planning?
H
Saw a woman in her car (who else :D) the other day trying to turn directly round the corner from Bachelors Walk onto this northbound part of the bridge 😮
Perhaps it was intended to refurbish the bridge in the latter stages of the O’Connell St project, but as uncertainty over the Luas link loomed it was left as is for the time being – a good decision all considering. An RPA spokesperson said the other day that a decision on the link route is due in September.
Fully agreed about seating on the street and the city centre in general. It is a scandal that there isn’t a single place to sit on any of the principal thoroughfares between the Garden of Remembrance and St. Stephen’s Green, a distance of over a mile of prime city space – a shame of the highest order. Indeed the only decent breathing place is the base of Moore’s statue on College Street!
I’ve been observing all these people sitting on the rabbits too, even outside McDonald’s on the busy Lower west corner, and they’re often packed on the Upper median as can be seen.
Yet where provision was made in the IAP for seating on the Lower median, we now effectively have a bicycle park; the taxi rank has also consumed valuable pedestrian seating space. So when are we going to get seats on the street? – whatever about the new northern part, the southern end has been finished for well over a year now and still nothing.The Hares get a writeup in todays Times (I wont post it as it has already been detailed from the DCC press release). The pic on the front page also shows pedestrians sitting on the statue base. Surely with the coming of the kiosks, we shall see more seating, or will this public seating on the street be effectively privatised as the kiosk will be under private control as cafes etc.
The fact that there is no seating perhaps shows just how little the street has actually changed. Sure, it looks all the better for its wider footpaths but it is still not thought of as a place to linger or relax. Just a means to access shops.
Any progress on your before and after shots Graham!
Also wondering how the new lighting is working out at GPO. Anyone seen the top section lit yet?
Wherever the there are seats (or indeed steps) in this town there is junkies or winos congregated around.
Until such time as the Devil’s Bit Cider brigade are put off the streets I don’t think we should provide venues for their alfresco refreshment – at least those in “Privatised” pavement areas don’t intimidate
I can’t understand this at all. If that were the case, we should never have built the boardwalk because homeless sleep there, bus shelters should still be made of horrible pastic because people break them and there should be no upstairs backseat on the 13A because of people smoking and drinking there.
The amount of people sitting on the statues shows the demand for seating on O’Connell Street. It might not be the nicest place to sit, in between all those buses and cars, but its still the city centre and it should be provided.
Because it’s such a pleasant experience walking along the boadwalk along Eden Quay (Irony alert). By all means built nice stuff for decent folk but don’t let the winos/junkies take it over. Until such time as there is better policing (when was the last time you saw a garda moving people along????) no more places for them should be built.
Better policing is the answer and it’s about time the decent people in this city (i.e. 99%) stood up and were counted – why should we be intimidated in our own city?
Absolutely there should be better policing but I don’t think we should stop building social spaces until we’re happy there are no anti-social types ready and waiting to abuse them.
Indeed. Come on – this is O’Connell Street, one of the busiest streets in the country in daylight hours. It also has a substantial Garda presence. If anybody thinks that winos hold an intimidating presence over O’Connell Street in this day and age they clearly don’t use the street or still live in 1986.
It’s a vibrant, bright and busy thoroughfare, something that diverts drunks and muggers like insect repellant. Yes there is still a problem of phone and handbag theft in this general area, but I imagine it has gone down a lot of late – otherwise there simply is not a widespread culture of intimidation on the street, and a pathetic excuse for a lack of seating.
Considering that the street has been fully furnished at this stage, it would simply appear the CC have no intention of installing public seating for whatever reason, relying instead on the private seating of the kiosks which will no doubt be surrounded with ugly fabric cordons to keep non-patrons away.
I hope this proves to be incorrect.After an Evening Herald blitz on the matter, it would appear that the Boardwalks, notably Eden Quay, are being addressed. These signs went up a month ago, and I saw the first ever Garda on a Boardwalk shortly afterwards too:
They are attached to every second planter, with little ones on the entrance lampposts too.
Odd thing is, I reckon theyll have to change or add to these signs with diagramatic type such as that of the diagonal red line thru a black bottle. A stat that I have come across suggests 1 in 5 illiteracy in the adult pop 😮
Also, while I agree with the sentiments behind the creation of the bye-law, that it has all the authority of a local authority is a bit of a damp biscuit. For example, if not why then why the guards apply the DCC bye-law as to access to wcs in pubs; many places now openly advertise that their facilities are “for patrons use only”…All very arbitery, methinks;)
BTW Graham,
@Graham Hickey wrote:
Indeed. Come on – this is O’Connell Street, one of the busiest streets in the country in daylight hours….If anybody thinks that winos hold an intimidating presence over O’Connell Street in this day and age they clearly don’t use the street or still live in 1986.
The last (and only) time that an attempt was made to mug me on that st was indeed 1986! I was 11. 😮 😮
Looking at the street now that its finished I think it is a little sterile as it misses the seating and most of all some flower containers which it always had in summer. I think some contempory public seating should be installed as well as some transient comtemporary seasonal plant cobntainers. It would certainly add a litlte more colour and softening. Also detract from some of the shitty shop fronts.
The Hares have finally reached the pages of the Irish Times…..
Madam, – I visited Dublin the other day to view those much hyped monumental hare sculptures in O’Connell Street. They are certainly eye-catching and I suspect they make a lot more sense to most people than the spire. But I hope the sculptures could serve another purpose. Perhaps they might remind us that the animal so eloquently and ingeniously depicted by Barry Flanagan is one of the most wronged and persecuted creatures on this island.
It’s a pity one of the sculptures wasn’t installed right in front of the Dáil to remind the politicians that they have rejected every attempt to seek protection for Irish hares. The vote-conscious baby kissers voted for coursing every time. – Yours, etc,
JOHN FITZGERALD, Callan, Co Kilkenny.
Madam, – It was with some relief that I read in The Irish Times that the highly unattractive sculptures of hares in O’Connell Street are a temporary aberration. A question of hare today, gone tomorrow. – Yours, etc,
ROSEMARY GRAHAM, Muldowney Court, Malahide, Co Dublin.
Madam, – It’s a pity Dublin City Gallery did not install the hare sculptures facing the sun. It would make for better viewing and more interesting holiday photographs. – Yours, etc,
TOM LAWLOR, (Photographer), Vernon Avenue, Clontarf, Dublin 3.
Madam, – The hares on O’Connell Street are great (if only temporary) – but when are we getting back the statue of the Sacred Heart? – Yours, etc,
CHRISTOPHER McCAMLEY, Newtown, Drogheda, Co Louth.
I see Burger King have their huge adverts draped over the front of the building 😡 I could have sworn they did the same last year and were told to remove it, I can’t believe they did it again.
Edit: Crappy camera-phone photo
It’s really awful: a giant, badly designed ad for icecreams that covers the entire upper floors of the building. Is there any penalty for doing this?
This is unbelievable! Barely even a year from their last reprimand by Planning in April 2005 for their baguette advertisement!
Well this time round they’re certainly not getting the benefit of a free picture ad on the internet.Really contemptuous behaviour – again knowing full well they’ll have 14 days or something to take it down, on top of the planning processing delay, and on top of the time before anyone even notices!
Anyway, Enforcement have been notified. As for penalties Frank, good question – can fines only be issued via the courts?Indeed on the general theme of enforcement, all the IAP and ACA etc documention went on about strict monitoring of planning and development in this area; presumably other ACAs have/will have similar objectives too. Not that I’m referring to the Burger King case, but does this translate into a physical walkabout by a planning official every few months, or is it a more office-based form of monitoring by means of applications coming in, or even a vaguer aspiration than that?
For an area under IAP like O’Connell street, there really should be stringent penalties for obvious breaches like that. A Planning Enforcement officer should walk around the area once a day, every day and note anything like that. The company should be notified and be fined, something like €1,000 per day starting from the day it was noticed. Companies will only stop abusing OCS if DCC start getting tough with them.
I’ve also submitted a complaint to DCC PE, as of yesterday afternoon.
Planning Enforcement Officer my ass……
If such a beast actually did manage to get from Civic Offices to O Connell Bridge he/she would first have to notice yet MORE stupid aluminum poles….Yes in our communal desire to be more Polish than the Poles,Dublin City Council have erected two MORE poles on the west side of O Connell Bridge this time.Do we have any Physchotherapists posting here who could broaden our understanding of this Councils communal NEED to erect a pole for each and every sign.
Not content with making a rats ass of what initially was an attractive idea for more public open space on O Connell St this so-called “Authority” now seems hell bent on turning the street and environs into an aluminum forest.
More evidence of this unhealthy fetish could be faound last week at the Pembroke St/Leeson St junction where the Traffic Signal maintenance company were busy (Yet Again) attempting to seperate the Traffic Signal pole from the pavement after yet another total flattening of the poorly located pole.
The only way the pole can sustain being in this particular location (S/E corner of Pembroke St) is if the council are prepared to protect it with embedded RSJ or to use a lamp-post diameter pole to mount the signal array.
Instead the contractors.just like lemmings,re-erect yet another pole which stands a more than good chance of being flattened within 24 hrs.
The cause is simple…ever longer and wider Commercial Vehicles and Coaches with NO extra manouvering spaces..the remedy is equally simple……:p
@markpb wrote:
I see Burger King have their huge adverts draped over the front of the building 😡 I could have sworn they did the same last year and were told to remove it, I can’t believe they did it again.
Edit: Crappy camera-phone photo
Graham is right on the dates 12th April 2005 is when the enforcement notice was issued.
Here’s what it was like for those who’ve forgotten
https://archiseek.com/content/showpost.php?p=32656&postcount=1147I contacted the planning department about this yesterday, but havn’t heard anything back yet.
Meanwhile I was wondering if anyone knows if the icecream sign be treated as a breach of the April ’05 notice. It is the same location, same owner and fundamentally the same breach. Are the penalties the same either way?The fines for this sort of thing should be increased to a week in the clink for the MD of the company – that would put a stop to this sort of bollocks.
Alternatively – they should be made hang a banner of some overweight lard-ass with bad skin with the caption “eat here and look like this” on it
Or made to walk up and down in front of their premises with a placard apologising for their breach like that idiot who was caught urinating on an ATM on O’Connell St a number of years ago.
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