O’ Connell Street, Dublin
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The Heritage Officer was very much a man the last time I spoke to him, his name is Donnacha O’Duling (I know I spellt that wrong by the way). Perhap Stephen, you are thinking of the City Conservation Officer who is a she.
The opinion that he expressed was that interference is undesirable, but in the case of Fr. Mattew the fact that the hands were so prominent he thought repair wass nessisary, or he did think that at one stage anyway.
@StephenC wrote:
Anyone know if the taxi drivers statue of Jesus will be going back once the works have been completed. Judging by the paving line (this is the first spot to have kerbs laid) the taxi rank will still be in place once the median is completed.
Oh please god I hope it gets ‘misplaced’. I hate that shaggin’ thing, it’s a hideous eye sore.
How exactly were they lost – was told before but forgot. It wasn’t either of the conflicts on the street as far as I know…
I was wondering about Jesus too – notably this wasn’t included in the monument conservation programme 😀
Perhaps the CC are waiting for a bit of the old Divine Intervention to zap the PVC to oblivion….Judging by the paving line…the taxi rank will still be in place once the median is completed.
Surely this isn’t being plonked back in the middle again is it?
@Graham Hickey wrote:
How exactly were they lost – was told before but forgot. It wasn’t either of the conflicts on the street as far as I know…
I was wondering about Jesus too – notably this wasn’t included in the monument conservation programme 😀
You’re wrong, Graham, it was included.. it was removed completely! 😀 Great improvement.
As for the taxi rank.. where are those O’c redevelopment plan PDF files.. I seem to remember looking at them some time ago and now I can’t find them. They might give an indication as to where the taxi rank will be.
@Morlan wrote:
it was removed completely! 😀
Ah, but is he in cold storage somewhere ready to be reinstated – that’s the question….
Yes those files did show the Upper layout – goodness only knows where they are amongst all the posts. Think Peter posted them…
From what i can recall, the taxi rank was to be preserved along the median.Probably discussed before but what about seating on the central median? It’s non existant. What would you think to having single seating arranged much like on Barcelona’s La Rambla? At present there isn’t really any incentive for people to congregate on the median, you either sit on the ground or stand. The ones on la Rambla are arranged nicely. Two centre seats with one at either end facing at a slight angle to the two centre seats. Maybe the median is cluttered enough though!
The first thing would be to remove the bicycle parking stands and introduce parking control in relation to the illegal parking of motorbikes and two wheeled hair dryers.
I would be in favour of seating if one or more of the kiosks trades as a cafe?
I do however hope that the trees are kept at a limited stage of development and never mature anymore than the size in your picture. I saw the Gresham yesterday for the first time since the trees came down and even with a building site in front it looks exceptional and it can only be enhanced by the planned refurb.
Always presumed that seating would go onto the median once it is was finished, but as time went on it just never materialised.
I do hope though that it is not intended that the street’s public seating will be made up of chairs provided by a private operator of a coffee kiosk, where one is obliged to buy something first.Permanent public seating would certainly be welcome on the median once the bikes go – though if that taxi rank is going along the median again, I’d rather not have to sit with them gawping at you the whole time – bad enough as it is walking past them.
The Plaza the other day – traffic enforcement is definitely needed, and fast before a culture develops (not that it hasn’t already). To say it again, the cheek of some people….:mad:
Just came across the contractors that cleaned the O’Connell Bridge balustrading:
http://www.pmac.ie/stone_cleaning.htm
Needless to say, they’re highlighting with pictures what was an excellent job it was. Thank you P.MAC Ltd!
I think this cleaning went by rather quietly, yet it has transformed this area of the city. The difference between the former drab, not to mention disgustingly stained, Portland stone is astonishing, especially when viewed now in the sun.
It projects a warmth out to the pedestrian passing by, and into what is to be honest a rather cold grey city centre and riverscape.
The difference was really remarkable.
The cleaning also helped hugely in reducing (if not quite eliminating :)) the dirty Dublin image. Despite pedestrians and tourists brushing right past every single day for years they were so close, the stone was never touched for cleaning.
It should have been done 10 years ago, but better late than never.
has anyone else noticed the yellowing of the leaves on the trees opposite the GPO? spotted it yesterday morning, it’s quite visible.
Yes the Ballustrades scrubbed up very well on the Bridge as only portland stone can to that extent.
What is the storey with the Bus-Stop on the middle of the southbound section of the Bridge?
The company operating it travels from Dublin to Galway, I really fail to see how this could have been considered let alone sanctioned as this service is not like a Dublin Bus where people get on, pay and sit down (if possible) but this involves the driver getting off and loading luggage under the bus requiring the bus to stop for a period of time in a section of road that is already heavily congested with other buses, Taxis and cars. It presents a significant risk to cyclist safety and it should be removed and transfered to a much more appropriate location.
An absolute joke from every point of view.
Not only, do you have loads of traffic coming from the quays and O’Connell Street, you also have other double decker buses turning left from the contraflow lane on Eden Quay.
There’s an interesting thread here on the type of chaos it can cause: http://p201.ezboard.com/fbustravelirelandfrm8.showMessageRange?topicID=859.topic&start=21&stop=35
You would have to question Dublin City Council’s decision on this especially considering what happened on Wellington Quay.
It’s also offensive from a purely visual point of view in having a bus stop with a block of concrete as its base on the city’s most important bridge.I tried to register for that site but to no avail, can you post some of the best comment?
@www.irish-architecture.com/news/2005/000140.html wrote:
O’Connell Street locked in legal wrangles
Archiseek / Ireland / News / 2005 / July 25
The Irish TimesCompletion of the O’Connell Street regeneration project has been delayed to “an extraordinary degree” by the ongoing legal proceedings over the former Carlton cinema site, Dublin city manager John Fitzgerald has said. The disused cinema and an adjacent derelict lot have been described by Mr Fitzgerald as “the most important site in the entire city”, yet it remains undeveloped because of legal wrangling between the owners and the council, and involving the owners themselves. The council made a compulsory purchase order of the site in December 2001, after determining that the Carlton Group of landowners, who had secured planning for the site in 1999, had neither the finance nor expertise to advance the project.
It is so disappointing to see this situation continuing still further, can someone not make a business decision and forget about the rights and wrongs of who said what for just once, from a civic point of view the outcome of this case will have no long term effects but it could be the long term before an outcome does finally emerge.
Between this section and the Royal Dublin the street has two real eye-sores, I never thought I’d say this but the old Fingal HQ is starting to grow on me, it has certain qualities of its period.
This picture is from the thread on All About Buses and gives you an idea of just how stupid putting a bus stop on a bridge is.
Its cracked isnt it…. especially after Wellington Quay and how this highlighted the need for safe location of bus stops.
It is amazing how short memories can be for transport regulators.
Today is the 25th anniversery of the Buttervant rail disaster
This is digressing a bit, but the location and positioning of Dublin bust stops generally is woeful. There’s a bus shelter on Dorset Street that has a bank of phone booths right in the line of sight for oncoming traffic. It’s a really busy stop, and people are frequently forced to walk out into the traffic to hail their bus. I’ve never seen anyone use the phones.
There’s another opposite Whitehall Church stuck right between two mature trees. Six inches further out and it would be usable. Instead, it’s not used at all because you can’t see anything.There was a picture of the Bank of Ireland on College Green in last Sundays Business Post taken I suspect about 1992 or so and the lack of visual clutter was noticeable. I’ll try anmd scan it up next week in work but in the interim the image is taken from about Foxes at the Start of Grafton St and there isn’t a traffic sign, phonebox or telcoms box in sight just a Bombardiar bus and the building and thats it.
In other news an RPA crew were spotted measuring up Westland Row yesterday so the ‘six options received by the minister’ must have been a long way short of the ‘ready for railway works order’ we were led to believe.
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