Devin

Ok right – but I meant it loosely as well – Light house were the precursor in spirit to the IFC. Glad to hear they might be back.

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@Graham Hickey wrote:

Yes only the end tower is missing [the ‘bag picture’]
The central one should be rebuilt too as part of these proposed works.

This is funny: In the book Lost Dublin, a 1949 newspaper piece is quoted, describing the removal of the central tower, which it was claimed ‘served no useful purpose. Its style accorded with no know known style of architecture, it was utterly useless from a utility point of view, and was always regarded as a piece of misconceived Victorian decoration’ 😀 . Interesting question though]have[/I] to be done), should the central tower with its domed roofs & viewing gallery be reconstructed as well, and should the small domed roofs be put back on the terminating towers, and should the missing egg-urned parapet balustrade along the whole front be reinstated?

Here’s what will have to be replicated at the west end of the facade – any takers?!

Excluding the lovely Office shoeshop building, all of the buildings from Arnotts down to the Liffey Street corner are utter rubbish (above). Do Arnotts definitely have all of these? – Great! Can’t wait to see them go – mid-‘80s tat!
The only one of perhaps any interest is the white-painted one 2nd from the corner. It probably dates to the original 18th century layout of Henry Street, but has an Edwardian orange brick refacing, now painted. It’s probably heavily altered and featureless inside as well. You couldn’t get worked up about it.

Perhaps I am so addled by the thought of traffic being removed from College Green (for Luas) that I can’t yet contemplate what wires running in front of the buildings would look like. The buildings and the space can’t be enjoyed at the moment; it is a dirty, noisy, hostile area where it is best to keep moving. The gain of Luas going through seems immense.

@murphaph wrote:

A version of the Citadis tram (the one we use) can run without overhead cables, instead relying on a conducting track running between the rails, underneath the vehicle. It is constructed in short sections that only energise when a tram is covering them, meaning they are quite safe to step on otherwise! I think Lyon uses this system in it’s visually important areas and then the trams switch to overhead supply in other places.

This is interesting. Luas running without overhead wires doesn’t seem so far-fetched if the same type of tram does so elsewhere. I don’t see why it is so unlikely to happen, as a few people have said.

Entirely separate from the Luas ‘Route B’ plan, a new Liffey pedestrian bridge in this location was proposed in the 1998 O’Connell Street IAP. I think putting any kind of a bridge there – for Luas or for pedestrians – is a load of cack. Just because there are streets lining up (approximately) on each side does not mean you have to put a bridge there. I’m all for ‘connectivity’ but it can be taken too far. Too much damage has already been done over the past 30 years with putting bridges in the wrong place on the Liffey (a major bugbear of mine 😡 ).

On the Route Poll thread (https://archiseek.com/content/showthread.php?t=4474&page=2), ‘a boyle’ says that Route B will allow the Pearse Street/Westland Row area to become a shopping destination – I wouldn’t have thought these streets, made up of 18th & 19th century commercial and private buildings, were that suitable for this. Somewhere like Westland Row I think fulfils its purpose very well as it is.

If you live on the southern leg of the dart, I suppose having the Luas Green line come to Westland Row station is attractive … you’d be able to get for example from Sandymount to Dundrum without bearing the full brunt of the city centre.

But really, why should the eastern rail corridor be connected up to both Luas lines in two different places in the city centre? I just think Route B is daft!

That’s nice. I’d say most of what you can see there (but not the towerhouse) was rebuilt in 1925 – it has that Lambay Castle look about it.

Gianlorenzo, that sounds a bit depressing about Rome. – There was a surprising amount of PVC in Paris last time I was there – but not so much as to get really worried about.

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Some will know Cherry House on Sussex Terrace, just off Leeson Street Bridge, which is built in an international style of ’40s/’50s apartment building. It’s the centrepiece of a complex of apartment blocks built on the grounds of demolished Georgian house, Mespil House. All of the other blocks have been modernised with aluminium or PVC windows, but that’s no great tragedy because they are of relatively no architectural merit.

Cherry House though has been deservedly and beautifully preserved with all of its original architectural features intact … UNTIL RECENTLY 😡 . When the above picture was taken two years ago, every single steel window in the building was still in situ. But in the past year, the rot has begun 😡 …

… the VILE WHITE PLASTIC has crept into two 4th floor windows in the facade 😡 (above). The utter thoughtlessness and selfishness of the person who did this; ‘Screw the integrity of the building, with its beautiful wine brick and painted steel windows – I want my glarey white PVC windows!’ :rolleyes:
It is not a Protected Structure.

If extra heat/sound proofing was required, this is what should have been done (below); the use of an inner window, as seen here on the Credit Union in Harold’s Cross.

Cherry House has amazing full-height stair landing windows at the rear (below right). If the Council don’t get the finger out and add it to the Protected Structures list, more damage and loss will be incurred.

The discussion on routes is now starting to become split between here and ‘Luas Central Corridor’.

I agree with what murphaph said on ‘Luas Central Corridor’, that Route B would seem to be trying to do ‘too many things’. To be heading straight for the centre of town (as the Green line does), then suddenly making a detour way off east, only to come back to the centre again just doesn’t have the ring of sensible transport planning about it.

In discussing Dublin’s public transport plans, there are seemingly endless influencing factors to be taken into account in how it is all going to best knit together, and it is easy to get bogged down in conjecture. But I strongly feel it’s better to build this light rail route as originally planned (Route A). Some, not all, of the buses will have to be redistributed east and west.