Walking Around Paradise Street
A part of town I never went to or ventured near was the Chavasse Park area of the city centre. The park was uninspiring and the car park area a gravel mess. Beyond that was the bus station [state of the art several years before], the multi story and the Moat 'ouse, next to that, those horrible derelict square buildings. The best part of that area was that little area with the advertising board sunk into the ground, it always facinated me anyway. Weird how you accept things as they are...
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1389/...6c380b8ad0.jpg
Paradise Street Bus Station 2004
The work started, then things got interesting. The newly built carpark became my vantage point for many pictures of the development [not the above pic lol] In fact, since the development began, I havn't parked anywhere else whilst visiting town.
The walk was boring and that part of town, depressing. Couple that area with Duke Street were a complete mess. Did I ever look at the buildings I passed? Rarely.
Now when I walk down/ up from the carpark, under the new walkway into town I'm amazed at the rapid progress since 2004.
It's taken a while to get used to all the workmen knocking around the area but now, whilst walking through the hundreds, I feel they are as part of town as the buildings going up and I'm sure they'll all be missed.
It's also breathtaking at the speed that these buildings have gone up and are close to completion. Almost certainly there's been a new building going up everytime I've been in recently.
I noticed that the Herbert building [the first completed building of the Development?] has scafolding around it already.
Then once into Church Street, I've almost missed the new flooring being put down, maybe I've managed to keep me eyes closed to it all, it was a bloody mess at one point. Now its busy and alive again.
What has also shocked me is the amount of people using the Lord Street Area. Once the walkway/ arcade opens allowing people to walk through from Church Street to Paradise Street its gonna open a previously largely inaccessable and depressed[and an area no one wanted to go] area of town to hundreds of thousands of people.
Then there's the magical transformation of Bluecoat Chambers, it looks brand new!
I wonder what joys I'll encounter next time I venture into Town...
I'm interested to hear from members and the other areas of town....
