Shopfront race to the bottom
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I want a recycled baby for a euro.
Bike shops have form in the signage department.
This is the old Paddy Whelan Cycles shop at 119 – 120 Cork Street. It’s been closed for some time, but the signage endures. No. 120 is a probable former twin gabled, three storey, ‘Dutch Billy’, with a pair of very deep perpendicular roof volumes subsequently lowered and hipped behind a flat parapet.
Do I want a safari in Kent or a bicycle? Im very confused by some of the shops on this thread :confused:
Maybe I’ll just stick to a pram for Lunasas recycled baby 😀
What’s the connection between prams and bikes? My grandfather used to have a bike and pram shop in Donnybrook in the 1940s-1950s, and the combination struck me as odd, but Eurobabycycles and Mr Whelan would suggest that it was a fairly common occurrence. (Oddly, two of the 4 sons of that grandfather went into the electrics game- again, like Paddy Whelan.)
Is it that they both require similar types of maintenance?
Great photo by the way, gunter.
@ctesiphon wrote:
What’s the connection between prams and bikes? ……..
Is it that they both require similar types of maintenance?Yes, the connection is mechanical and more. The springs used to reduce vibration on bikes carried over to pram design. Prams had wheel-bearings, spoked wheels, and like those on bikes, the spokes required regular tensioning. Main brands were Silver Cross, Walker and Pedigree. From memory Kilroys in Dublin were the main pram distributors, and also distributed bicycles. (I think they were an early acquisition by Smurfit? ) Choice of “working class” locations for combined bike / pram shops also is linked to finance – a shilling a week on the drip for the bike and the same for the chisler’s pram. In the ’60s there was a great bike shop in Dalkey – Mr. Coombs, stacked to the roof with scrap bikes, he would not deign to sell a pram; and another in Dun Laoghaire, Leiths, that sold bikes & prams.
K. ( A fan of the Sturmey Archer, and the Brother)Cheers, KB. Silver Cross I had heard of (when I saw your post last night I had to resist the temptation to post a photo of ctesiphon aged 1 asleep in a Silver Cross, all the more tempting given the presence of The Brother in the same photo! :)), but not the others. My grandfather’s shop (none of the names you mentioned, btw!) probably served a similar function, as it dated from a time when Donnybrook was far more socially diverse than today (Sean Dunne, take note- it’s only two generations since Dublin 4 had an established working class population).
Prams today would probably have more in common with SUVs than bikes, alas: ATPs. 😉
c. (Currently enjoying a Shimano Nexus hub gear, and coveting a Rohloff speedhub.)
what’s with the bike shops and archiseek? my grandfather and dad ran a bike shop for many many years in Monaghan
Those connoisseurs of discreet, understated signage, Spar, opened a new shop on Smithfield about a year ago with all their usual restraint and good taste. But it since went on fire and will not now be reopening. Poetic justice?
@Devin wrote:
………..But it since went on fire and will not now be reopening. Poetic justice?
Possibly, but it’s due to the death of Breakfst Roll Man. Sales at Deli counters have plummeted. Sales of so-called “convenience” grocery shopping have also gone down the toilet. More will fold in high rent areas, many more will not go ahead due to lack of funding.
K.… as Ireland goes back to local shops operating on small margins.
But since this is a shopfronts thread:
A protected structure on Capel Street in early ’08.
And in early ’09.
to be fair devin there’s not a whole lot fundamentally wrong with that imo-nothing irreversible or irritatingly chain branding about it-if you saw it in Amsterdam or Copenhagen people on here would be romancing about how it added to the gritty urban patina of an ever transforming neighbourhood etc…
Johnny Eagle’s tattoo parlour was/has been up there like Custer’ s last stand on that block for decades and whatever lease or ownership he held there possibly kept that terrace from the bulldozers that obliterated that whole city block- I’d allocate honorary urban design tastelessnes squatter’s rights to the terrace on this one 😉Whatever about the signage, whoever did the restoration of that building (two – three years ago) deserved a medal, imo. This is a Wide Streets Commissioners terrace I presume?
With subtle pointing and a deliberate effort to go back to the original detailing (knocking of plaster window reveals etc.) they somehow managed to turn a grotty yellow brick building into a classy brown/red brick building.
I better come clean on this, a yellow brick is just a failed red brick, in my book.
Graham will probably have something to say (probably did have something to say) about the window panes, but imagine if the whole terrace was restored to this standard, shopfronts and all, including the two houses that have lost their Wyatt windows, what a head turner that would be!
Tommyt, I know what you mean. It’s sort of agreeably tacky. On the quaint side of tacky perhaps … And as you say perfectly reversible. Problem is the knock-on effect – somebody else then does something worse: A few doors up in the same terrace, a guy has just refurbished the shop unit (on the left in the pic below). And, to keep up with the Salon Urody people and create more space for the signage of future tenants, he has enlarged the shopfront fascia over the column capitals, so that the effect of the arms and hands (columns & capitals) holding up the fascia is lost and the uniformity of the five shopfront buildings is messed up.
It’s a really unique terrace in the the city and a great survival so it’d be a shame to see it bastardised too much. Gunter I agree – high standard of conservation to that building that you don’t usually get in this part of the city. The tuck pointing is an example of how it should done and the sashes are historically accurate.
I take your point. If you’re familiar with the concept of ‘geurilla gardening’ perhaps an new clandestine amateur urban joinery unit could tackle this faux pas!
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