Liquid Nightclub Demolition - Almost Done!

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And when it is all cleared away, they can start building this bag of shite....





http://novumcastellum.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/oxford-tiffanys-studio-ritzy-ikon.html
http://novumcastellum.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/the-oxford-tiffanys-studio-ritzy-ikon.html
http://novumcastellum.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/end-of-era-for-newcastle-city-night-spot.html

The Oxford, Tiffanys, Studio, Ritzy, Ikon, Liquid etc Demolition has begun

Woohoo - another demolition I can get a bonk-on about.

Plans have been approved and work has commenced on demolishing the non-listed parts of the Ikon night club on New Bridge Street, Newcastle.  The listed parts - the entrance portico and the adjacent John Dobson House - will be preserved, enhanced and used for a cafe / retail outlet.

http://novumcastellum.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/end-of-era-for-newcastle-city-night-spot.html

Is it just me, or was someone having a laugh when they designed Portland House?

The Journey / Kitchen's Music Store

Having anticipated the opening of a new cafe on the Blue Carpet for some time (http://novumcastellum.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/new-cafe-bar-for-blue-carpet-square.html) and, in particular, the opening of the Sustrans/ ColoorCoffee/Recyke Y'Bikejoint venture, I was pleased get the chance to pop in for a cuppa after work recently.

As I sat enjoying my coffee, I reminisced that it was in this very spot, about 35 years ago, that I bought my first guitar - a Fender FC20 Classic - when the cafe was once a music shop called "Kitchens".

Now, I have scoured the internet (well a couple of Google and forum searches) for images of this music store but cannot find any at all.  I had begun to think that I was imagining it, when I stumbled on an article from a couple of years ago on the Evening Chronicle site.  Not only am I right and there was such a store here,  it seems I am in good company buying a guitar from Kitchens.  The article containing an interview where Dire Straits legend Mark Knopfler reveal that it was Kitchen's music shop where he picked up his first guitar. He revealed that the shop manager who handed the instrument over had some sage advice for the would-be megastar: “He told me to stick at it,” said. “I should have taken his advice!”  He had  bought the guitar was bought from Kitchen’s music store, in the mid-1960s, when it occupied the corner unit of Higham House, on New Bridge Street West, where The Journey is now.

Come to think of it, I wish I had stuck at the guitar as well.

Anyway, The Journey opened its doors a few weeks ago now, and comprises a cafe serving great coffee in pleasant surroundings - great decor with glass fronted exterior providing views on to the 'Blue' Carpet and the historic Lying-In Hostipital (and former BBC) building.

Old Snooker Club New Bridge Street

This is a view of the old snooker club from the Manors pedestrian bridge over the central motorway. The building which spans New Bridge Street has been empty for some time and has been colourfully adorned with paint. Not sure if this is graffiti or an art installation but it looks good. A welcome addition to a pretty drab building. 

End of an era for Newcastle city night spot

Possibly. 

You can guess someone's age or generation at least by the name they use to refer to the night club on New Bridge Street, the one currently known as Liquid (or it it just LQ nowadays?) Me, I only went there when it was the Studio, Ritzy and then Ikon, but I'm from the younger end of the Tiffany's generation. For my parents generation, it was, of course, the Oxford, or The Oxford Galleries - named after a street which ran alongside, roughly parallel to the central motorway, called Oxford Street.   But the long-standing Newcastle nightspot is set to become history under redevelopment plans that have been submitted to the council.

There are plans afoot to demolish much of the club, leaving the listed entrance building and portico, intact. In its place, the developers plan to build student accommodation - a modern development in three blocks of increasing height, stepping up away from the rear of the Grade II listed John Dobson House (which currently houses the club entrance, cloakroom and "back-office" space).

Many will have happy memories of this place, the Oxford holds a special place in the hearts of many of my parents generation; the same is true for subsequent generations who have enjoyed nights at the various incarnations of nightclubs that followed.  But over the past twenty years, the reputation of night clubs here has deteriorated. Unfortunately, violent incidents, glassings and murders even will be the overriding memories of some.

While it is sad to see the end of the club, it's a great opportunity to restore the John Dobson house to its former glory. The plans include stripping back the white paint to reveal its original stone facade. The restored building will house a cafe / restaurant with outside seating on the Blue Carpet. 

I'm not quite so sure about the designs for the student accommodation blocks though - it's seems to be a design which is very much of this time (based on similar modernist design concepts popular in the 1960s) - and very similar to other buildings that are going up across the city.  I do like modern and modernist architecture, but I can't help thinking that another T Dan Smith-esque silhouette is looming across the city again, just when many of the monstrosities from the 60s and 70s have been demolished.

The Blue Carpet

Thomas Heatherwick would crash his Routemaster bus if he drove past and saw this shite.  The increasingly delapidated - literally (latin - to take away stone) public art project known as The Blue Carpet is becoming an eyesore.  The yellow-grey tiles with flecks of blue glass are crumbling faster than the council can lay new ones - and their stock of replacement tiles is depleting fast; the lights have gone out, benches flattened, thresholds nicked, lighting snuffed out, tree roots threatening to lift the tiles before they disintegrate entirely.  It's past its sell-by date.

It might be expected that a public work of art would look past its best after a while - especially if the maintenance costs are high or its bespoke nature make it impossible to replace parts - but this has looked shite for years.  

This project has been a joke from its first inception - and I mean Newcastle Council's efforts in installing and maintaining the project, rather than the designer's original concept - which I do like. The council have ballsed this up from the start.  I have worked in and around the area this square for many years, watched its development, and despaired at the delays, installation and demise.  It has seriously wound me up to the extent that, if pushed to offer my opinion on it, I am so utterly exasperated that I would be lost for words.   

I have always thought it was a good design concept with some novel and interesting ideas / features.  But the execution of the project's installation was disgraceful,  and the end result I found to be disappointing - especially the colour of the tiles: light blue at best.  On the plus side, it did turn an anonymous drab location - a dead end / cul de sac / turning circle - into a pedestrianised public open space which is certainly an improvement on what was there before.  And I concede grudgingly that it is a reasonably pleasant place in the summer - if only there were more than two benches to sit on.

The Blue Carpet was conceived or commissioned in 1996 as part of a Council sponsored Visual Arts programme, but budget constraints, technical problems other planning wrangles conspired to delay the completion of the project until 2001, with the partially completed site laying idle for well over a year.  But long period of disruption caused by construction work and delays when the Blue Carpet was being installed. This affected both visibility and access to surrounding premises and business for up to two years.

I attended some of the council's local consultation meetings where the details of the project and its installation timetable were presented to representatives of companies in the vicinity of the development.  The concept presented to us comprised a carpet of tiles containing recycled blue glass that would provide a rich shade of blue.  It was intended that the extent of the carpet would reach all the way to the spiral staircase "ribbon" next to the Crest hotel (Premier Inn at present) - the staircase would resemble a ribbon twirling down on to a blue carpet.  There would be underground illuminated display cabinets where the carpet had been pulled back to create a bench. It was intended that these cabinets would display artefacts from the Laing Art Gallery (whose doors open on to the carpet).

Budget constraints reduced the area of the carpet so that it ended well short of the ribbon staircase, the underground cabinets were narrow cavities filled with permanently-lit, multi-coloured, flourescent tube lighting, covered by a smooth toughened glass panel.  Healthy and safety concerns soon dictated that the glass was covered by transparent grip tape.

Flourescent tubes proved expensive to run and difficult to replace once they reached the end of their life.   In 2006, the flouresent tube lighting system was replaced by coloured LED rope lights - much dimmer than the original tubes.  They are permanently lit, and now most of them have gone out.

Delivery vans flattened two of the benches; they were never replaced - simply carpeted over. Thieves have stolen some of the thresholds - I didn't realise that they were actually metal - and they are screwed down in the same was as a carpet threshold would be.

It looks a mess and it should be ripped up.  It's a shame, it could have been so much better.  I just hope that the Council gets on with is East Pilgrim Street development proposals and creates a large pedestrianised square spanning John Dobson Street, to connect the Laing Art Gallery and the Library.

Advertising bill board John Dobson street

Walking along new bridge street west towards the central library, I noticed that the billboards opposite, on the intersection of John Dobson Street and New Bridge Street had been pulled down. 

My first thought was "oh, at last, they are going to build on this piece of waste land" - perhaps the commencement of the ill-fated / ill-timed /considerably delayed "East Pilgrim Street regeneration project. My pulse quickened. Are they proceeding with this scheme at long last?  By they, I mean Newcastle City Council.   A regeneration scheme for the area to the east of Pilgrim Street: an inverted pie slice shaped area bordered by the Central Motorway, was fist mooted back in 2007 /2008 but I think the plans were quietly shelved owing to the worsening financial climate,  credit crunch, impending recession, Government cuts, all of the above (the "Newcastle Council All-Purpose Tick as Appropriate Excuse Form" should be used here).   

I seem to recall in the plans, that this area was to be designated a pedestrian zone, and there was proposed a large public square on the intersection of John Dobson Street and New Bridge Street, which seemed to overlap or even replace the Blue Carpet square.  

The area behind the advertising boards is quite large. Sufficient room for a striking building to complement the new library building opposite. There is a ventilation shaft on this site, however, which may create some restriction on the size and type of structure built here.  Its irrelevant; and I needn't have gotten excited; a quick check on Newcastle's planning website shows that what is planned here is just more advertising hoardings - perhaps even illuminated ones.

New cafe-bar for the Blue Carpet square

I hesitate in celebrating the closure of any business in the north east- not just because of the impact it has on the lives of those people affected, but because I want to see a vibrant, thriving and well developed retail sector (and economy) in the north east, and take no pleasure in any set backs or failures.

However, some economists argue that recessions can be good for clearing out 'dead wood' to make room for strong new growth. I .e. - failing businesses can hog resources and finance (customers even?) which could be better employed elsewhere - they crowd out investment which could be supporting the development of new or stronger businesses. In this respect, I am glad to see the back of these two businesses: Fusion bar and Supashop newsagents and takeaway.

Back in year 2000, or so, there were two thriving businesses on what is now the (abysmal) blue carpet square on New Bridge Street. One was a newsagents, which had expanded from a small narrow unit with little stock to a larger unit with quality wooden shop fittings and an extended range of stock which included alcohol and some food. Next door was a cafe called The Sour Pickle. This cafe also sold takeaway sandwiches and other food. On a lunchtime, the cafe would be jam packed- all tables occupied and a queue of people waiting to be served. and there would be a queue of people out of the door, most days, wanting to buy sandwiches. The bacon, chicken, cheese, and coleslaw in a sun dried tomato ciabatta bun was my favourite - a bit of mouthful to order, but I rattled the order off like a New Yorker, I was tempted to ask for a cuorrfee to go.

I say they were thriving businesses, but they both no doubt suffered from the long period of disruption caused by construction work and delays when the blue carpet was being installed. This affected both visibility and access to the premises for up to two years (the project ran into funding difficulties and there were technical problems in creating that right shade of yellow-grey tile - so essential for a blue carpet).

Anyway, around this time, the owners of the newsagents and the cafe separately decided to sell up, and a single buyer bought both businesses. The new owner gutted the cafe, rearranged the layout, painted a royal blue colour and renamed the cafe "Cafe Blue". He got rid of all the friendly young fit lasses who worked in the Sour Pickle, and kept on the miserable old boiler. The place died on its arse. In the meantime, the newsagents was similarly gutted and then went through a 13 year period of constant renovation and reorganisation without any obvious improvements resulting - the phrase "you can't polish a turd" springs to mind here as being an apt description of the result of their efforts.

Cafe Blue closed down and the premises were refurbished - initially to a decent standard. Fusion Bar opened in its place and it first it seemed to be quite a pleasant place to have a drink, although it was a bit on the small side. Unfortunately, it was not long before it started to go down hill. A website called The Burglars Dog (which hilariously but viciously provided reviews of all the pubs in Newcastle - tracking their constants changes and fortunes) described the change as if it were a crack den where anything decent or of value and been ripped out and sold for drugs - leaving a depressing shitty hole in its place - I paraphrase here cos i can't find the original review, so I am not doing justice to the Burglars Dog reviewers description). Further developments saw the partial merger of both premises - they knocked a hole in the wall for a door, but access between the two premises was impeded by a supporting column.

Unbelievably, both business limped on for many years until they finally closed earlier this year. I have now heard that the original owner of the newsagents is hoping to open a cafe bar here in October, which will be called "The Laughing Tiger". It's a bit of an odd choice of name, especially since there is a cafe nearby, on the base of block of flats above John Dobson Street, called The Laughing Cat. Is he trying to prove that he is the top cat in town?