Pana Park

10th Oct 2007

Pana Park
Alan Ger


"Look Billy lah, see all de diggers and de big trucks over there", pipes a middle aged woman wrestling a load of heavily laden Tesco bags outside the Crawford Art Gallery on Emmet Place, the hand of a red faced three year old boy providing complementary strain on the alternate arm.

Her grandson, now filled with that sudden mysterious enthusiasm that takes over the bodies of all smallies at the sight of heavy machinery, gasped at the unexpected cluster of yellow machines, flashing lights, moving earth and men in hard hats and suits muttering into walkie-talkies whilst looking every bit 'up de walls'.

10th October 2007: the view from Emmet Place towards where the Grand Circle and Johnson & Perrott once stood.

Achieving the desired distraction to his, no doubt lengthy, campaign to be brought for chips before getting the bus home, he now presented his granny with a new burden by stopping in his tracks, jumping excitedly on the spot and pointing at the massive building works underway on the old Dunnes Stores and Examiner Office sites.

Therein lies a common dilemma for parents and guardians. Do you drive on to make a self-imposed deadline, cutting-short the child's wonder or do you concede to their natural inquisitiveness and decide to enjoy their relentless questioning and innocence?

This Corkwoman chose the latter, already half enthusiastic about resigning her week's shopping to the footpath to reaffirm the grip on her now hyperactive grandson's hand.

"Wooow! Looka dah wan Gran!! Its breakin' the wall!"
"Yeah boy, dats called dem-o-lition".

"Denon-ishon"
"…em…yeah"

"Dass my favourite one dayure lah - why are they knockin' it down for, Gran?"
"To build something else"

"A park so I can play my hurley?"
"No luv. More shops and tings like dat."

"They should make a park Gran so I can play hurley wit me dad in town when mam is shoppin'"
"True biy…true…c'mon now boy we'll bring you home."

October 10th 2007: The view from Emmet Place towards Academy Street and the site of the old Evening Echo & Examiner offices.

Earlier this summer the swinging demolition balls rolled into Pana to end the reign of a famous set of buildings, reminding Corkonians of those poignant 1920's black and white photographs of the burning of Cork - the last time that part of that part of the street lay desolate.

Thankfully the reasons for today's works are far more positive. Out with the old and in with the new as they say: a new shopping centre and over 90 apartments covering 18,000 square metres are to be built on what is now a demolition zone which will, very soon, graduate to a construction site.

Anyone who hasn't visited the city centre recently will be awe struck at the scale of the giant hole in the city centre landscape. From Emmet Place it's now possible to see right into Patrick Street and across the street to the buildings on the other side. Only for the developer's obligations to maintain the old facades facing onto Patrick Street there would be a clear path right across the city.

With the exception of a few old facades and one entire building on Emmet Place, O'Callaghan properties have levelled the 18,000 sq metre site - an effort which took over thirty individual property deals.

While Corkonians debate and gossip about what will replace the old stock, the truth is that the vast majority of people have no idea what is to be built in its place. How many people have seen the plans? How many readers would recognise a drawing of the proposed building if they saw it in isolation? Far too little.

People may talk about what type of shops are missing from the city, that they'd like to see more cafés, restaurants or book stores but sometimes we miss the obvious, in our unconscious resignation that it must be a commercial operation to have any benefit to the city.

The smallie on Emmet Place didn't though.

Just image for a second what a park on that site would look like - or at least what it would look like to him. Take your last memory of Fitzgerald's Park and copy and paste it into the now empty vacumn of muck and sludge on that site.

Picture yourself balmed out on the grass getting to grips with a mouth watering treat from one of the park's "slow food" vendors whilst peppering your bán white skin in the early summer sunshine.

A brass band assembles at the far end of Emmet Square providing some soft accompaniment for your brief escape from the clutches of your consumerist overlords - although their soft puffy bags are proving you with a comfy pillow to help you keep an eye on the small ones as they puck around on the green.

'Don't hit the ducks with the sliotar now lads!"

A bunch of excitable Spanish teenagers form a circle around their tour guide on the freshly cut grass and listen to stories about the days that great Cork men died for their beliefs - "just like that bronze statue of Terrence MacSweeney over there near those giant rose beds - he's the man who inspired Ghandi in India".

Before we grow wings and take off to join the fairies, we know there's no chance of this happening now. The truth is that all humans, and even us Corkonians, are well up for big name stores, more competition, more choice descending on our city centre.

We're well up for this new development on Patick Street too but, in all our debate about what's best for the city sometimes it takes the innocent eye of a smallie to see the obvious….now where are those Tesco bags?