Pedestrain Shortcuts

Trinity College during daytime provides a shortcut from Front Arch to Lincoln Gate and at certain times of the day from Pearse Street/Tara Street to Nassasu Street.

Before it was shut, there was a shortcut from through Grafton Street arcade to Dawson Street via Hodges Figgis.

Iveagh Gardens provides a shortcut between Harcourt St and Earlsfort Terrace and then you can get to Leeson Street via the Earlsfort Centre.

The steps between Great Ship Street and Castle Street Dublin * saves going through the Castle or around via Bride Street.

The passage between Camden Place and Harcourt Street

The passage from Dame Street to the Stags Head

Doh

Crampton Court in Temple Bar- connects Dame Street to East Essex Street down the western side of the Olympia Theatre.

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One question, on a more theoretical/philosophical (?) level- What constitutes a shortcut? This question occurred to me in the ‘How well do you know Dublin?’ thread, where Paul said:
@Paul Clerkin, in the other thread wrote:

I knew I knew it – I used to shortcut through Newmarket from Thomas Street on my way to the SCR

My initial thoughts on reading this were ‘Why is it a shortcut if it’s your route home?’ and more broadly, what’s the difference between a shortcut and the most direct route from A to B? Because some routes do feel like shortcuts and others don’t.

Is it the physical setting? i.e. Narrow lanes, lightly trafficked, building backs and sides rather than fronts.
Is it a route that another mode of transport can’t take? i.e. if you were driving you’d go one way, but on foot/bike you’d take a shortcut, such as a laneway for bikes and pedestrians or walking against the flow of a one-way street, etc.
Or is it something else?

Would somewhere like, say, Andrew’s Lane or Jervis Lane qualify as shortcuts?

We ‘ave a finker here gov!

Good point raised there, and well expanded. A shortcut is pretty much defined by the terms you’ve just outlined ctesiphon, esp regarding a route that another mode of transport can’t take. And inevitably a less trafficked route that has an off-the-beaten-track quality to it feels like a shortcut – even something as simple as taking the Store Street route from the base of the former Connolly ramp through to Gardiner Street and onto O’Connell, rather than the busier Talbot Street which is pretty much the same distance!

In Dublin in particular I’d even define a shortcut as being a route that has less pedestrian lights and fewer obstacles. Even walking down Westmoreland Street on alternate sides can define a shortcut from a regular route, or cutting through Temple Bar from Dame Street to O’Connell Bridge rather than using the public face of the city, the ‘Grand Throughfare’, which is horribly congested at certain times – even though it’s all the same distance.

And to pick up on another current thread, South William Street makes a for a wonderful avoidance tactic with regard to Grafton Street, as do all of these western streets. The cobbled lane opposite the Hairy Lemon pub on Stephen Street another great escape mechanism.

Hmmm – the more I think of it, the more avoiding other pedestrians at all costs seems to be define a shortcut 😀
That, and making the quickest time availing of less trafficked routes.

GrahamH and Ctesiphon, I think that in the way you are both describing a shortcut it comes down to an individuals knowledge of specific places within a city. When you first arrive somewhere, or are not very familiar with a certain part of the city, you will more than likely follow more main thoroughfares. As you get to know it you build up a mental map of the area and might take more risks to get you to where you are going in a different manner. This may come down to a range of reasons, such as avoiding traffic, or other people, to get to a place quicker, or maybe just to have a more interesting route.

The back lanes around Baggot Street and Leeson Street make lovely short cuts. The only issue is that sometimes they aren’t shorter:)

@ctesiphon wrote:

Crampton Court in Temple Bar- connects Dame Street to East Essex Street down the western side of the Olympia Theatre.

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One question, on a more theoretical/philosophical (?) level- What constitutes a shortcut?

I agree that the word shortcut is a bit of a misnomer. It may be a poor reflection on society today but I’d say that a shortcut is a route that you would take only during daylight hours with people around. An underpass, for example, might be a shortcut but you’re unlikely to take it at 2am. Or a road that has no streetlighting at night.

@phil wrote:

I think that in the way you are both describing a shortcut it comes down to an individuals knowledge of specific places within a city.

Agreed. I was thinking about this last night after I wrote the above. Taking a shortcut is almost a badge of belonging in some ways, separating those with a passing familiarity from those with an intimate knowledge. Not a badge used to exclude others, mind you. 🙂 Georges Perec has some good words on getting to know a new city that might be pertinent here. I’ll try to remember to dig them out when I get home.

Another quality that I think might define a shortcut is an element of transgression, i.e. taking a route that isn’t the ‘prescribed’ route, for whatever reason, whether it’s a route through a graveyard, the shortcut through Trinity (it’s surprising how many people think they’ll get turned back if they try to enter the campus), a back lane, or even something like going through Habitat to get from Dame Street to Suffolk Street.

I note from rereading the original post that there was an element of the man-made in the question, i.e. shortcuts that had been fashioned by human intervention. I’ll have to get my thinking cap on again, but I suspect it’s more likely they’d be found in new developments than in older parts of the city, in places where the desire lines are just being established rather than set in stone.

Down and around Hawkins St, by the main entrance to the thing is a handy shortcut to Tara St station as there’s less people walking down it and you can get a quicker pace up if needs be! I found that out from working in the area..
The route from Westmoreland St to College Green/Nassau St is probably the most underused shortcut in the city, though that could be due to gate closing times.

A route between Merrion Square and Kildare St without having to go either of the long ways around would be great. Possibly behind the Natural History Museum? That’s something I would dearly like to see.

ctesiphon, are you thinking of the passage Georges Perec wrote on “The Town”? (it’s in a compilation I have called “Species of Spaces and Other Places” but it may appear in other anthologies.) I was just thinking of this too after phil’s comment about how a shortcut implies a familiarity with a place. Couldn’t help doing some digging and was able to pinpoint this passage (cannibalized here from Perec’s elegant text for sake of brevity) on getting to know a foreign town for the first time:

“Two days may be enough to start to get acclimatized. The day you find out that the statue of Ludwig Spankerfel di Nominatore (the celebrated brewer) is only three minutes from your hotel (at the end of Prince Adalbert Street) whereas you’ve been taking a good half hour to get there, you start to take possession of the town. That doesn’t mean you start to inhabit it.”

Perec has some beautiful writing on the philosophy of place, space, cities, buildings, that is truly enjoyable to read. It gets you looking at your own familiar surroundings with unfamiliar eyes.

Perec also suggests the exercise of taking a route through Paris using only streets that begin with the letter “C.” That might qualify as a longcut, however…

@manifesta wrote:

ctesiphon, are you thinking of the passage Georges Perec wrote on “The Town”?

That’s it exactly! Especially this bit: That doesn’t mean you start to inhabit it.

I’ve mentioned GP here a few times, but I never miss a chance to give him another plug. ‘Species of Spaces and Other Pieces’ – widely available in Penguin paperback – is my favourite book on cities/spaces/environment. It’s not directly about them in an academic sense; more obliquely so, and all the better for it. Should be on everyone’s Christmas list.:) The bit titled ‘Species of Spaces’ particularly should be on every architect and planner’s reading list.

I had a suspicion! And thanks for pointing out the correct title of the book: it is indeed pieces, not places. And yes, if this doesn’t make it onto Christmas lists, perhaps we could plant them like so many Gideon’s bibles in unsuspecting nightstands. There is something powerfully simple in the notion that a city or a town can be both meticulously planned and yet so open to discovery and randomness. It’s strange that a book can so closely reflect that same experience, but somehow this one does. It’s great to wander through it, step away, come back, find a new route or just look awhile at a certain phrase or idea the way one does an unusual building or street sign.

Both Perec and Calvino (whose “Invisible Cities” I’ve seen mentioned in other threads) were members of the Oulipo (the “workshop for potential literature”), a collective of writers who advocated strict self-imposed rules and structure as a way of freeing up the artist to create work that was paradoxically imaginative, similar to the rules of a game. I’ve often thought of how it applies to an idea of potential architecture. It blurs the line between what’s planning and what’s dreaming, and that’s always a good thing.

@fergalr wrote:

Down and around Hawkins St, by the main entrance to the thing is a handy shortcut to Tara St station as there’s less people walking down it and you can get a quicker pace up if needs be! I found that out from working in the area..

Do you mean the Leinster Market, which runs between D’Olier Street and Hawkins Street?

I saw that tv ad the other night again, the one promoting Dublin city as a hipster playground – sorry, I mean as an interesting place to live – and I noticed that as the fella is descending the steps under the arch into Meeting House Square the text says something like ‘Your favourite short-cut’.

Taking possession? Inhabiting?
Is it even a shortcut?

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manifesta-
don’t get me started on the concept of creativity benefitting from a little restriction. I have a bunch of quotes gathered over the last few years on this very subject, and how unlimited freedom is more of a curse than a blessing.

e_houlihan-
Can I ask if there’s a purpose to this, or is it just personal curiosity?

I wonder if there isn’t a necessary element of discovery to the shortcut. First, you must obtain a certain familiarity with an area to know that A will reliably lead you to B. But then there comes that moment of discovery when you decide to wander down that particular alley and see that you can get from A to B in half the time. That’s a great moment and a necessary step in building your own city or town, that “badge of belonging” cstesiphon described. However, if all you’ve known all your life is the alley route, it may be a shortcut by definition but it probably won’t feel like one.

If some fella on tv tells me it’s a shortcut, somehow I feel I’ve been cheated of it. It’s his smarmy little shortcut, not mine, and suddenly I’m no longer interested in it.

Cities are built innumerable times: first, by the planners, then by the builders, and finally by the inhabitants who begin to learn the streets and make them their own. That’s what makes the idea of mapping shortcuts such an interesting one. Unless it’s a strict matter of “shortest possible route from A to B,” everyone’s map would look different.

e_houlihan, I’d be curious to see how you’re proceeding with the map.

And ctesiphon, that sounded to me like a dare… or at least an invitation!
“Oulipans: rats who build the labyrinth from which they plan to escape” — Raymond Queneau.

Just remembered that shortcut between Dawson Street and South Frederick Street.

There is a nice arrangement of lanes, alleyways, and other shortcuts around Dublin Castle, such as the link mentioned by PVC King between Little Ship Street and Castle Street. I also think it is a pity that there is not a pedestrian crossing at the point where Dame Lane crosses South Great Georges Street. I seem to remember discussion about a new connection being created between the junction of Stephen’s Street and South Great Georges Street and Dublin Castle during the construction of that new corner building. Did I imagine that or is there to be a connection to the gardens at this point?

I found this in an old notebook earlier today, and I thought it belonged here:

@Nelson Algren, City on the make wrote:

It isn’t hard to love a town for its greater and its lesser towers, its pleasant parks or its flashing ballet. Or for its broad and bending boulevards, where the continuous headlights follow one dark driver afterthe next, one swift car after another, all night, all night and all night. But you never truly love it till you can love its alleys too.
…
Before you earn the right to rap any sort of joint, you have to love it a little while.

From: http://billbeuttler.com/work28.htm

im not to sure if these are in the right area but:
there is a lane you can take from abbey street all the way up to parnell street parallel to capel street but avoiding any traffic(car and human),coupled with temple bar,millenium bridge and ‘little italy’ you can go straight trough the city centre on a very pedestrian safe journey!

there is a small(dodgy) lane behind some flats between townsend street and the quays,wont cut hours of any journey but if your looking for somewhere youll never see life in…

if moore street isnt dodgy enough for you there is always an even dodgier lane parallel to it!

if that dont float your boat check out the warren of ‘shortcuts’ through the flats behind guiness’s near marrowbone lane!

the last few here arnt exactly shorter but they’re a lot more ‘intimate’ and a lot less used than common throughfares!