caltrane74
Senior Member
Those pictures of Bangkok look someone combined North York City Centre ( Empress Walk) with Oriental Centre (Sheppard-Brimley) and Pacific Mall in one place.
Still Bangkok looks cool!
Still Bangkok looks cool!
As for the draw of steps and such, the corner of Church and Wellesley used to function this way and when 'the steps' were taken away people just migrated south until they found more steps. Also, works around Eros in Picadilly. People love steps!!
Interesting views. There is no other living being in the known universe that has ever suggested that Bangkok is overly clean! and suburban!! and comparable to Houston!!! - and indeed any of these individually would be an insult but together they are an Armageddon level curse on any place. Luckily, I suspect also there is no person in Thailand that reads this blog so we are all safe.
Anyway, I am going there tomorrow afternoon and will try to cope.
But also, and I mean this seriously, if this was you experience and if you ever come back to this part of the world, let me know. I will ensure that you have an experience that is far from clean, suburban and Houstonish. I will not join you but I will give you guidance.
Also, they're not really somewhere where you can sit and relax. Nor are they somewhere to meet someone. Most uses for a city square involve not getting wet. And most people on Dundas Square aren't walking there because they need to go somewhere; it is not the most direct route between any two points (except for maybe between Hard Rock Cafe and the yet-to-be completed TLS, if you like jaywalking) No, if you're at Dundas Square, you're there to chill out, and chilling needs somewhere to sit. Patio chairs and tables don't cut it, we need steps. Don't get me wrong, I love Dundas Square; and I know it well because I live a minute's walk away. But when I go there I never feel like I can sit and relax, even for just a moment. There's something formal about a chair at a table; you have to pull it out, sit down, put your stuff on the table, etc. There's a whole set of social etiquette rules that go along with sitting at a table. With steps you can just flop down, in all your unpretentious glory. It makes you feel welcome.
Urban Shocker, a WLM statue is an abosolutely fantastic idea. So appropriate in so many ways. But at the same time, i feel like it would be a small piece of historica overpowered by the commercialism that surrounds it. That's why I was thinking something modern (and a little interactive) by a local artist.
Having large areas of marble sidewalks set back from a road with one heck of a lot of lanes only looks pedestrian in scale when there are kiosks, tables, chairs, and of course people filling up that space. It looks pretty dead.