Whilst walking in to work I would pass Leazes Park & Old Eldon Square and then on to Grey Street. Recent developments have reminded me of three wishes I had to improve parts of the city where I was born & have lived all my life. My first wish was that Old Eldon Square needed to be redeveloped & turned inside out to face the square as someone in their infinite wisdom had thought it a good idea when demolishing huge chunks of the historic city fabric to build the 'new' Eldon Square with it's back turned on the square. Why anyone would have considered that to be a good urban design decision is beyond me! In 1978 Christoph
In 1978 Christopher Brooker said it was “perhaps the greatest single example of architectural vandalism in Britain since the war. Until ten years ago this most handsome piece of old Newcastle, with its blackened, post-classical frontages survived intact. Today only one side remains, the rest dominated by the astonishingly brutal shopping centre put up by Capital and Counties, turning its brick backside on the world in the most aggressive way in order to lure Novocastrians into the softly-lit womb of the air-conditioned shopping malls within.” I thought about writing to the city council to suggest they hold a design competition to get best use out of this green space in the heart of the city. I was convinced that cafés & bars should line the square with seating spilling outdoors & creating a vibrant outdoor environment. I never did write the letter but a few years ago an attempt was made to do just that which, in my opinion, hasn’t quite achieved what it set out to do. A coffee shop & restaurant now have outdoor seating areas straddling a new entrance into the shopping centre which at least pulls people through the square. The west side of the square was redeveloped to include restaurants with outdoor seating but there is very little interaction with the actual square, rather just a few tables set around the edge behind a low knee high rail with the obligatory ubiquitous advertising banners keeping you within the licenced area. What we now have is considerably better than it was previously but I’m delighted to hear that there are now plans afoot to take another look at the space & make better use of it’s untapped potential. My second wish takes me to a place where I have spent the vast majority of my working life – Grey Street, one of the most beautiful streets in the country which, again, in my opinion, has never moved with the times & fulfilled it’s potential. In my early days it was full of banks, offices & only a couple of bars & I can’t even remember any restaurants. There was talk for many years of a San Francisco style cable car system to transport people up & down to the quayside. What did we get, yellow buses! Slightly underwhelming. My vision for the street was to remove all traffic, carry out some very high quality hard landscaping & plant two rows of hardy lemon trees, or at least something similar that would survive our climate, with seating up and down the centre of the street, with bars & restaurants either side spilling out onto the pavement, giving a life & vibrancy that the setting demands. The Ramblas of the north is born, well in my head at least! Again, I am delighted that there are now moves to take the street in this direction, starting with the removal of cars. What I don’t understand is why it has taken a pandemic to make this happen. Why spoil one of our best assets by filling it with cars & exhaust fumes? One of my favourite places in the world is Rome. Granted they have a better climate but they sit outside all year round, wrapped in their blankets & parkas under heaters in the winter, eating & drinking. I think a quick look around our city will show we are adopting many of the habits of the Romans but it has taken Covid 19 to encourage us outdoors. My third wish has been that the Grade 1 listed Grainger Market, under the iconic glazed barrelled roof, has the potential to be the Covent Garden of the north. The market has changed hugely since my mother used to take me there when I was a child in that it still has the traditional butchers & fruit & veg stalls but it now hosts niche street food operators, gift shops & coffee shops. I would be lying if I said that my involvement with STACK has influenced my thought process here but I can’t help thinking that a similar type operation under that barrelled roof could be hugely successful, combining both the current trend for street food & craft beers with live music & entertainment. This wish of mine is yet to happen, but who knows, maybe one day
