paul_moloney
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Is there anyone who wants to stop these projects _merely_ for the sake of stopping them? You make it sound like there’s a conspiracy of Luddites out there who want to stop new building purely for that sake. I don’t think you’ve find any objection to any developments on Parnell St, but Moore St’s very character comes from partly from its age and the ambience of the buildings. There might be an argument for complete renovation if there was no life left in the street, but there patently is if you’ve been down there lately. God forbid it becomes’s Dublin’s equivalent of the souless “improvements” at Les Halles.
Does any know why on earth this street
was redone? Since half the street is
taken up by the rare bare side of a
shopping centre, it didn’t appear to
be a natural candidate for renovation.
Did someone from the Gaiety theatre
twist some arms somewhere?As it is, the fountain is absolutely
pathetic, resembling some kind of
urinal. I presume the bowl is meant to
faint dribble of water emanating
from it, but most of the water actually
runs down the street, making the fountain
look even more like a broken drain.Amazingly enough, this calamity
took at a year or more to create.
Who was responsible for it?
And why?P.
Nice pic of the place. I took some last night as I was passing, which can be seen at http://www.iol.ie/~paulmoloney/fishamble.jpg. Is there any information on the history of the house, its age?
Cheers.
P.
I’m a long-term (9 years) resident
just off Dame St, so Cow’s Lane is the nearest shopping “area” to me; I live about 2 minutes walk from there. In the last 2 years, the only thing I’ve bought there was a pumpkin, and only because someone had set up a temporary stall there just before Halloween.Actually, “pumpkin” pretty much describes the lane. Yes, it looks nice. But all of the shops belong to the Objecthaus School of Overpriced Kitsch; the kind of places frequented by those trying to be hyper-hip on high salaries – that is, very downturn- and recession-unfriendly.
P.
It’s not just you; there’s quite a lot of dirt streaks down the length of it. Since they have self-cleaning glass (some kind of coating that reacts with rain, I presume?), wouldn’t it have been possible to the same with the Spire?
Dirty, with great fecking bollards and a Red Nose Day light on top. And it’s only been up 3 months….
P.
It was fantastic to see all the surviving Art Deco cinemas and apartment buildings in India, and how lovingly some are preserved; it was an image of the country rarely shown.
The shots of gigantic bat-wing Art Deco planes never to be built reminded me of Gibson’s short story, “The Gernback Continuum” (available online at http://lib.ru/GIBSON/r_contin.txt, with a commentary that links it to Art Deco at http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/wooda/149/149syllabus2gerns.html).The Philips building was originally for Burton’s menswear. I’m assuming this because of the big “Burton’s” sign at the top. 🙂 Wasn’t the Carlton cinema Art Deco (I should say _is_, since the exterior is still there.) Did any of the old cinemas have lavish interiors that were (presumably) gutted?
P.
Am I missing something? The Spire isn’t _that_ high.. why on earth does it need an elaborate aviation light? Surely any light would do?
Also, I noticed they’ve places bollards all around the Spire, not even in any discernable pattern (the bollards on the west side of the Spire are in a straight line, while on the east they follow the curve of the spire). Are these permanent? They’ll ruin the effect of the base of the Spire, i think.
P.
Trinty’s absolutely fear of the local community would be funny if it weren’t so offensive. As a student, I lived about 2 minutes as-the-crow-flies from the science-end buildings of Trinity. However, I usually had to make a 20 minutes tip all the way up Pearse St to the front gates, then all the way back down again, since gates near Westland Row only opened for an hour in the mornings or evening. How this was supposed to stop a determined thief, who could enter college at Lincoln Place, I don’t know, but it highlighted Trinity’s attitute to the area.
P.
As a kid I used to live in the flats right behind the Academy, and it was always a source of wonderment to us; every so often, a clearout in there would produce a skip full of cinema relics from olden times, such as cutouts of movie stars long gone. Over the years it was allowed to fall more and more into neglect. By coincidence, when in college I’d hire public-viewing film reels and videos from a company based there, so got to see part of the inside.
The church beside the Academy was ruined years ago, its gothic exterior homogenised and the atmopheric graveyard of eldritch tombs and crypts removed. The removal of the Academy is pretty much the last blow to Pearse St.When I saw the facade being renovated, I hoped for a moment some sense had come back to our attitude to the city. Obviously not.
I expect some hideous glass phallus will be attached to the building by some self-congratulatory moron.P.
Interesting to note on the associated thread that some people lament the fact that Kennedy’s pub couldn’t be bulldozed to make way for the shiny, spiffy, oh-so-comtemporary Tara St station (which 20 years later will probably look as awful as most modern architecture).
It’s a great old pub, and Dublin needs it far more than it needs 20 more square metres of minimalist soulless w*nk-space.
P.
In all this discussion about this, do Trinity have a leg to stand on? It’s not like Lucasfilms make a replica of the original; it’s merely a drawing. Does copyright apply to the mere image of a building rather than the actual blueprints?
If it does also apply to the mere image, then wouldn’t you have to get permission for _every_ building you feature in a film?
Also, who owns the copyright to the image – not necessarily the owner, I would imagine. And since Thomas Burgh is long dead, who gets it? And has the copyright run out by now? (It’s 300 years later, after all).I have a feeling all this will leave Trinity looking either silly or greedy or both. In my mind, they should:
* issue loads of press releases saying how flattered they are with the “homage”
* behind the scenes, do a deal with Lucafilms to have some kind of exhibition with them with all the ensuring financial benefits and free _positive_ publicity that would bring
P.
