GrahamH
Forum Replies Created
- Posts
Very impressive arial view of the BoI on College Green on telly yesterday with the coverage of the parade, from a massive ‘Height for Hire’. Unlike RTE to go to such efforts to appriciate the city or indeed anything related to our built surroundings. The city centre did look resplendent however on camera, which is more than can be said for this morning…
What!!! Having the light half way down will/does just look ludicrous! Since when do tall structures require lighting up along their profiles? This will utterly destroy the effect created by it’s nightime illumination/floodlighting. And the red aviation light, will this be visible from street level? Why isn’t the LED white light sufficient? If you can’t see that from a plane, what the bloody hell can you? This is terrible!
Annnnyway, there’s a half hour feature programme about Nelson’s Pillar and the Spire, and the controversies surrounding them etc on RTE One tommorrow evening (Patrick’s Day) at
7 o’clock entitled ‘Tale Tales’, a Townlands special.Expect lots of sentimental rose-tintedness and talking heads…
Me too, it’s Dublin’s greatest urban space, and really would be spectacular ‘converted’, with the BOI, Trinity and the Victorian contibutions as eye candy. We’d have to say bye bye to the Ulster Bank though…
Wouldn’t it be fantastic sometime in the future, of course preferably now, to exclude all traffic from O’ Connell Bridge and have a large pedestian plaza area instead, all paved in granite, sunken lighting, water features, cafes with tables similar to the boardwalk, vantage points with info about the city and the views….
Ahh, one day, one day.
Presumably thats happening with the O’ C St works.
Presumably.
The Portland stone balustrading is also filthy, in fact disgustingly dirty. I have a picture of the bridge from 1978 and it’s sparkling white, an indication of it’s last cleaning…
Hmmm, just thought, they could have been reduced to 3 lanterns each in 1947 because of the installation of the concrete lamposts (now gone) on the bridge…
Saw them illuminated last night and they look spectacular, and just in time for Patrick’s Day, for the world to see…
I didn’t know they bought that. And the banking hall, is that the former AIB building in Foster Place beside the BOI? What are they doing with that?
On the corner railway site, I remember hearing that Trinity agreed to install shopfronts onto Pearse St as some concession to it’s wrecking of the street.
Waheyyyy!!!
The lighting within the tip was turned on for the first time this evening!
Ok, it wasn’t quite in the tip but the clump of LEDs were being hauled up via the internal pully system to the top, switched on as it was happening.It was 6:30 when I was there, and the dazzlingly bright pure piercing white light was eminating from the joins of the 20m sections as it was being moved up inside.
In theory then, they should be up and operational by Monday, despite the absence of external floodlighting.
In theory…
I agree, the bollards do look wierd not completely encircling the base.
How was Trinity allowed to destroy Pearse St in the way that it has? Blocking up shopfronts with concrete blocks must contravene planning laws/regulations, let alone that they are beautiful terracotta fronted period shopfronts.
Unless the works were sanctioned by the CC, which is even worse…
Theres a lot of activity going on on the corner site with Westland Row, is that proposed campus building finally going up?
By the way, Trinity’s contempt for it’s architectural stock has reached it’s pinnical now with the job they have done on Westland Row (mentioned before). They have hired not experienced painters and decorators to finish off their job on all of it’s townhouses, but rather utterly incompetent workmen more accustomed it appears to lashing buckets of molten tar onto roofs. They have executed the most botched job concievable on the buildings, one in particular with marble columns having an inch of messy paint caked onto the marble thats supposed to be on the stone detail below.
Typical.Dream on, this is the CC, unfortunatly
These are brand new slabs, and will be ripped up again for the plaza to be installed, it’s paving being of granite slabs, laid in alternating stripes, like a football field.
Passed again about 5 this evening, all the paving is nearly finished already! All of the hoarding is now gone, just the steel railings to keep the prying public out.Will the Spire itself be cleaned before Monday? Its really manky now when seen in the sunlight.
(Westmoreland St looks brilliant with miles of green bunting stretched over the facades of it’s buildings)
Ok, well the paving is being laid now around the base, its not the planned paving for the plaza, but rather temporary paving, presumably for Patrick’s Day, and it looks like at least it will be completed in time, considering the pace of it’s laying.
Its simply a continuation of the 88 paving, ie concrete slabs (although smaller and square this time) with the red brick banding around the edges behind the kerbstones.Also, a plaza shape is not being created, just the central median being continued at it’s current width, hence the current 2 traffic lanes on either side will be restored to 3 lanes for the time being at least.
The stainless steel bollards are all the same height, not different as I said before, there’s either 8 or 10 in place, 4 or 5 on each road side.
There is no floodlighting at all on any of the corner buildings.
I was trying to read an artical over a passenger’s shoulder on the train yesterday about the Spire works not being completed in time for Patrick’s Day, in the Herald, but to no avail, anyone know anything?
At last, the lantern heads are on, erected it appears over the weekend.
And wow, wow, wow, they are spectacular!
They add a wonderful Parisian feel to the city centre, and an air of quality. The huge clumps of 5 copper/bronze? capped lanterns atop exquisitly detailed columns are so substantial & sturdy and are the only original, quality examples of major Victorian street furniture in the city.For once City Council, well done!!! They must have cost a bomb! (ie, us)
I can’t wait to see them illuminated, going by the brightness of the lanterns on the bridge’s balustrading, O’ Connell Bidge will be ablaze after dark!
Yep, and the first trail run with the public on board (& Seamus Brennan) took place at the weekend on the first completed part of one of the lines.
I know what you mean about Henrietta St, the first time I wandered up there, aside from the shock of being transported back two & a half centuries, all you can think about is ‘I sooooo shouldn’t be here!’
It’s so ominous and seculuded, almost mysterious, esp the silence.
I was far from impressed with the colour scheme of the interior of the LUAS. Purple, grey and yellow? I’m aware that the 80s is back, but come on. And to think a dedicated design crew were responsible for this!? I find it quite patronising, a cheap and cheery, happy happy scheme to brighten up the dreary days of the Dublin commuter.
And it will date as quickly as hell. Why couldn’t a more sophisticated scheme be adopted, even the new Dublin buses are miles ahead in that regard.
Saying this, the exteriors are spectacular, all be they predictable, & the vast to-ceiling windows are fantastic.
The aquisition costs are for the substantial overground part from Broadstone to the Airport.
The reality is that labour & materials are much more expensive here, regardless of the open market, and are much higher than Spain, being on the mainland & all that.
It is’nt so much a contingency fund (although that has been built in), but rather a fund for the huge, vast amounts that are required for everything other than physicaly laying tracks and tunneling, absolutely none of which are included in Barcelona’s figures. Also, the lack of any history of tunneling under Dublin city causes many problems, esp around the Liffey.
They are simple facts he laid out, and I don’t doubt anything he said for a second.
Unfortunate of course. I’ll keep an open mind on the subject.
