Pearse Tower to be demolished July 10 at 12 noon

🙂 Good to see its finally happening. It sorta marks the beginning of the end of an era, though.

Only seems like yesterday since I took photos from the top of the flats, when they were just newly built.

How proud the first tenants were of them at that stage, and how apprehensive they were to leave their kids play on the acres of mud / grass that surrounded them. They really do look dire now, with all the balconies painted.

One wonders how they would have fared, had controllable central heating been included, compared to the on or off underfloor system chosen.

have to get along to that. Spent the first 6 years of my life in Pearse Tower (wasn’t allowed out :D) I was almost born in the lift as it happens. My ma was in labour and was getting the lift down to the car to get us to hostpital and the lift droke down. When they finally fixed it and got it down there was a couple of hundred people, an ambulance and fire engine outside as word had spread that some woman had given birth in the lift.

Alas, I let everyone down by staying in until we got to the Coombe.

will defo go down for a looksee. only live down the road. one of the best parties I was ever at was in that tower block.

Pity explosives aren’t being used, there’s no fun in ‘long reach machinery’ – well only sometimes…

Indeed, I originally heard one of the towers was to be imploded (I also thought that it was Pearse Tower)

Indeed …
http://www.irish-architecture.com/news/2002/000141.htm
April 30 2002: Infamous high-rise towers to bite the dust in summer
The Irish Independent

Plans for the demolition of high-rise Ballymun towers have been completed. The four, eight and 15-storey concrete structures erected in the mid-1960s will be reduced to rubble, starting this summer. The first of the seven infamous towers to be levelled will be the Thomas McDonagh complex, which is to be dismantled layer by layer. Following that, Pearse tower, is to be blown up early next year by UK experts, Controlled Demolition Group Ltd.

In a word

ASBESTOS

Ah

It’s going to take a while to get rid of all of these buildings. theres close to thirty, isn’t there?

Wow, so the new buildings- I’ve seen some of the smaller proposals in addition to Santry Cross, but are there any plans of anything close to that scale? Such as groups of identical buildings like these that will be dismantled?

Ballymun landmark comes down today

Published by Rte Interactive 10 July 2004 14:16
Demolition of the Ballymun tower blocks in Dublin began at midday today.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, was present for the start of the demolition, which comes almost four decades after the flats were first built.

Ballymun’s 36 blocks of flats were initially seen as luxurious but quickly deteriorated.

Six hundred people have already moved from their flats into new homes in the area.

A good day for Dublin, maybe now the city can move on beyond its negative image of apartment living.

Does anyone have any of the architectural models of Ballymun Shopping Centre. It would be interesting to preserve at least something of this substantial Dublin community environment

1 down, 35 to go.

I have read in various sources that the cost of the entire Ballymun regeneration project is 2.5billion euros. But who exactly is paying for this, or how is it being paid for????

The commercial element within the residential area will cover a lot of it http://www.lisney.com

Then the PPP with Green Property to develop the Ballymun Business park will pay a bit more.

There are also a number of private units going in which will be sold at market value.

Then there is the government money which I don’t think too many will question.

Oh yes, I forgot about the private units.

Demolition of Ballymun tower

05 June 2005 11:09

http://www.rte.ie/news/2005/0605/ballymun.html

A Dublin landmark, McDonagh Tower in Ballymun, is being demolished by controlled explosion this morning.

The tower on Ballymun’s main street has 15 storeys and once contained 90 flats.

The demolition was due to take place at 11am today as part of the regeneration of the area. The tower will be replaced by a civic plaza.

Nine blocks of flats have already been taken down in Ballymun under the regeneration scheme, which will see 5,000 new homes built in the area. Ends

Did anyone see the demolition?

the implosion is on the ballymun regeneration website:

http://www.brl.ie/

cool photos.

There was a wonderful item on Nationwide on how people are reclaiming their communities in Ballymun in conjunction with Tidy Towns. Regeneration is both architecturual and social.
The programme can still be found on http://www.rte.ie

http://www.hotelballymun.com/

Any thoughts?

I would love to see this particular area of ballymun develop as some sort of artistic haven
If they could keep this block, i’m picturing it brightly painted, artistic types hanging out, with a real bohemian
feel to it. Like a mini greenwich village(nyc) of the 60s and 70s.

Although it is hard to imagine this in ballymun, for obvious reasons

@PVC King wrote:

Ballymun landmark comes down today

Published by Rte Interactive 10 July 2004 14:16
Demolition of the Ballymun tower blocks in Dublin began at midday today.

The Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, was present for the start of the demolition, which comes almost four decades after the flats were first built.

Ballymun’s 36 blocks of flats were initially seen as luxurious but quickly deteriorated.

Six hundred people have already moved from their flats into new homes in the area.

A good day for Dublin, maybe now the city can move on beyond its negative image of apartment living.

Does anyone have any of the architectural models of Ballymun Shopping Centre. It would be interesting to preserve at least something of this substantial Dublin community environment

=======
I wonder if anybody ever saw such architectural models of Ballymun Shopping Centre ever anywhere?
Possibly in the seventies, eighties or nineties?

=======

@paul h wrote:

I would love to see this particular area of ballymun develop as some sort of artistic haven
If they could keep this block, i’m picturing it brightly painted, artistic types hanging out, with a real bohemian
feel to it. Like a mini greenwich village(nyc) of the 60s and 70s.

Although it is hard to imagine this in ballymun, for obvious reasons

It’s worth imagining. In this age of the office block, boutique hotel and toytown apartments, redeveloping Ballymun into artists’ housing would be an amazing use of space. Space for artists to live and work (as opposed to some flash-in-the-pan new theatre or whatever) seems completely alien, if not anathema, to the agenda of most urban planning. So it’s refreshing to see this floated about as an idea.

Westbeth in Greenwich Village is the perfect model of this. This site, the former Bell Labs, was converted in the ’60s into artists’ housing, which includes a gallery, studio, and performance space. Photographer Diane Arbus, as well as Merce Cunningham and countless other artists, lived and worked out of Westbeth. It remains functioning as such to this day. Demand for the housing, which allows artists to pay rent based on a sliding scale according to income, was so great that they finally closed the waiting list this month– last I heard, the wait list for interested parties was twenty years long. 😮

http://www.westbeth.org/wb-about-pg.html

There’s some history of the building here, as well as some nice shots of the space dating from the ’30s (when the old high line railroad, now long defunct, ran right through the building) up to the present day. It’s such a shame there aren’t more spaces like this. As the cost of living in cities continues to escalate– in Dublin as elsewhere– there’s simply no other option for artists and writers and other starving artists other than scuttle off to the outskirts. Now if you’ll kindly excuse me. . .

: manifesta, tormented by visions of utopian urban planning, scuttles off to the outskirts :

@manifesta wrote:

…………….nice shots of the space dating from the ’30s (when the old high line railroad, now long defunct, ran right through the building) up to the present day…….

Just as a matter of interest the old high line railroad is being developed into a park due to open next year sometime. its in a sad state but promises to be a very unique experience with a different view of the city

High Line Facts Constructed 1929-1934
Spans 22 blocks, from 34th Street to Gansevoort Street
1.45 miles long
6.7 acres of space atop elevated rail deck
30-60 feet wide and 18-30 feet high
Built to support 2 fully loaded freight trains
Primary construction materials: steel and reinforced concrete
Owner: The City of New York

http://www.thehighline.org/design/prelim_design/index.htm

http://www.thevillager.com/villager_203/workonhighline.html

http://www.thehighline.org/

I highly recommend taking a look at these sites!

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I love that. But I kinda prefer the wilderness in the 2nd picture, I’m not too keen on all of it being landscaped.

It may have been nice to keep a wilderness side to it
but it would be pretty dangerous tryin to maneouver through it, and the impending lawsuits would give it a fairly short lifespan i’m sure!
I’m looking foward to this opening, it will be a great addition to the city, new york (in my opinion) just goes from strength to strength

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Pearse Tower will be closed in 3weeks – april18

Not long to capture some spectacular pano’s of the city!!
Anyone with an interest could get some real cracking shots

Irish Independant

It’s room with a view as spot of make-do-and-mend turns iconic tower block into high-rise art over city

IT’S a hotel unlike any other – with panoramic views across Dublin Bay – but it’s only going to be open for three weeks.

Housed in one of the remaining iconic tower blocks of north Dublin, it will be demolished next month to make way for a new town centre. Welcome to Hotel Ballymun – an arts project based on the 15th floor of the Thomas Clarke Tower that has lured southsiders across the river, keen to see how the area has been utterly transformed.

The beds are cobbled together from kitchen chairs and mattresses, but there are spectacular views from Tallaght to Howth. And while there mightn’t be en suite bathrooms, the room rate is discretionary with a ‘suggested’ fee of €50.

The most bohemian hostelry in Dublin, it boasts nine double bedrooms and two singles but is only open until April 18 next because it’s due to be demolished next month.

The brainchild of artist Seamus Nolan, Hotel Ballymun is a temporary arts project that includes short-stay hotel rooms.

Facilities include a disco room, a reading room, a garden room, and a glass-panelled burnt room (bedroom which was set on fire). All the fittings are made from discarded furniture left behind by former residents and include a chair made from books, beds made from an old armchair, and a bedside table made from an old video player, a stool and some glass.

Flats have been knocked into each other to make the hotel, and thankfully, it includes a working lift.

“It’s blown away the impression that Ballymun was a no-go area,” said project manager Paul McAree.

“I think it’s brilliant,” said Tanya O’Callaghan, who lives nearby and works in the hotel. “It’s very artistic and the view is spectacular. You’ll never see anything like this again.” Others aren’t so convinced.

“This is my old flat, I was the last tenant here,” Jane Thompson said. “It’s an awful shock to come back and see what they’ve done.”

Paul Melia