Thomas Street & James Street, Dublin!

I understand that Planning Enforcement have been notified.

You be suprised at just how long it takes to get enforcement action. I just enquired on an unauthorised advertising sign I notified in January and was told that it was still ‘under investigation’.

Equally I’m pursuing a blantantly illegal trivison that I reported almost exactly a year ago, it appears to still be spinning and making revenue.

Finding the owner seems to be the “go to” problem with enforcing these things. Surely this could be handled in revenue producing way (X fine per day) rather than the drag on LA resources and the corresponding sluggish response.

I think they are stabilisation and part demolition works agreed with DCC. One stays up and one comes down if I remember rightly

Well, the work as it appears, is happening on 162, which is probably beyond repair anyway… But the numbers have confused me here so I could be wrong

Yet they have a timber supported some of the windows on 164, is this purely a safety messure to prevent a total collapse during demolition, or are we getting a ‘facade’ job, with an extra floor added on (hence the removal of the roof) ?

163 featured on ‘Animal Clinic’ tonight on RTE1, apparently a lost dog found its way inside and had to be rescued. The DSPCA were reluctant to go in as they claimed it was a dangerous building. Then again, it was before the recent stablisation. In other news, 164 has been worked on lately too… Is it simply to stop it falling down and killing someone, or is it part of a long-term plan to restore?

Heh – and the ultimate irony being that ‘the listed redbrick’ is not listed, and if one had to make a harsh call of a cull in the group, that would be one of the first to go, not the last.

I spoke at length with two of the students involved in the above, who were actually quite considerate (perhaps one was Mr Jordan), but they kept restating, upon my no doubt grating incredulity at the project brief, that the lecturers were insisting that the site was to be cleared and that maximum scope be taken from the ‘contemporary presence on Thomas Street’. In fact, they were genuinely interested in the challenge of accommodating what was there once its significance and interest was explained to them.

As with the UCD GPO Abbey Theatre proposals a year or two ago, the mind boggles at the thinking behind what one can only describe as wasteful and corrupting exercises of this nature. Not only, by definition of the brief, are the buildings crude and non-contextual, they just look plain daft. That’s the main point, not really the historic streetscape aspect: one feels embarrassed both for the students trying to satisfy lunatic professors, and for the marooned civic buildings sandwiched in a rambling merchant terrace which would quite clearly like to be somewhere else. Like Coventry.

In other news, the vacant site a few doors up from the former library at No. 25ish currently has a large scaffold being erected by, presumably, The Digital Hub. Looks like they’re consolidating the exposed party walls of the flanking houses – a decade after the tooth was extracted.

Just heard St Catherines on Meath St was set on fire today. No proper reports of damage, but any fire is generally a bad thing

http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/man-held-over-church-fire-534328.html

A very sad event, and more poignant still in the context of recent discussion about the church over on the Irish Catholic Churches thread.

It was remarkable how suddenly indication of the fire became apparent on the street. I was walking along Thomas Street at the same time, on what a crisp clear evening. Ten minutes later, emerging from a shop, Thomas Street was totally engulfed in smoke – with the vista of the sister church, S.S. Augustine & John, positively magisterial as the soaring spire disappeared into the smog. As the wind was blowing from the south-west, the smoke literally pumped out in waves onto Thomas Street like a dirty great dry ice machine from the conduits of Vicar Street and the nearby alleyway of an apartment building. Extraordinary to see.

The locals were rushing about and reversing cars etc, while ever-helpful tourists were ringing the fire brigade (you could hear the sirens in the distance at that point). Poor St. Catherine’s itself had smoke oozing out of every orifice in the building’s upper structure, indicating just how much heat loss there is in a building of that kind (or good ventilation, if viewed that way). It was evident the entire volume of the interior was engulfed in smoke, as it was pouring out from the very front to the very back, from under the eaves and guttering, from under the slates, from under the leadwork, plumes rising behind the tower, and all joints in the roof such as the abutment of the lower pitch of the chancel with the nave wall. The wisps of smoke emerging from under slates dancing along in horizontal lines along the roof structure was particularly dramatic.

The fire brigade evidently got there very quickly, which is heartening, but it took well over an hour to get it under control. I can only imagine the building is very badly smoke and water damaged. Word this evening is that it was a deliberate arson attack in the crib area, and the individual in question is undergoing psychiatric assessment.

What’s enforcement mean Daddy?