Write a commentWhat a beautiful video celebrating the arts for children in Newry, taking in the wonderful landmarks surrounding Newry and hopefully promoting our city to the world.
But after watching it I have to ask - What sort of a ghost town do we live in?
The video would be a perfect advertisement for Shutter/ security manufacturers, documenting the different styles, shapes and looks of these wonderful modern day monstrosities!
The recording was made on a Sunday morning and I’ve heard people complain that it should have been done during ‘opening’ hours or that they should have asked businesses to open their shutters but that is no solution to the blot on our up and coming city.
What sort of a city do we want to live in? Do we want to promote the place we call “home” as a ‘normal’ city or even as somewhere people would want to visit.
As things are at present people looking at this video would run a mile. In fact Newry could possibly be the last place on earth they would want to visit, preferring perhaps the beautiful industrial estate close to Spaghetti Junction or the beautiful pyramids of junk at Traynors of The Moy.
I should say it’s not the fault of the video crew or indeed the participants - they were just documenting what was there - The camera never lies remember!
Whose fault is it though. Is there someone we can blame for the monster that is our city centre after opening hours?
Blame is counter productive anyway but there is no reason why we can’t start to make a change.
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One shop with no shutters may seem like a target for vandals but many shops with no shutters would create a street where there is no “novelty” in vandalism and bright shop fronts are the norm.
Anyway with the amount of cctv and surveillance vandalism should not be an issue. We spend our lives living in a ghost town just because of the vandals. We don’t leave the house just because of the vandals - what a way to live your short life!
By the way does anyone remember Newry before the shutters marched in. I’m sure they weren’t always there. Ok the troubles brought them along but psst - By the way - The troubles are actually over now, no point in holding on to your comfort blanket waiting for the next period of civil unrest in a hundred years time!
There are so many reasons not to change, to stay the way things are, threat of vandalism, theft, cost, insurance, habit and so on but if you want to make something of Newry and especially Hill Street it’s time to change that mindset NOW!
Do you want the children in this video growing up with the same ghost town of Hill Street as we have? I can’t imagine any rational person would but if you don’t you need to do something about it, it’s not going to fix itself and don’t expect anyone else to help you - do it yourself.
Like a game of draughts someone has to make the first move. Who is it going to be? Does anyone actually care what our main street looks like to the world out there?
As a very small starting gesture the crew behind the Newry 2020 initiative are organising a Festival of Windows next month in Hill Street, for two weeks from Friday the 13th of June, the aim being of encouraging shops to keep their shutters open longer in the evenings and ultimately making shop owners think of removing them all together. The Festival will showcase local arts and crafts with the norths largest Art Gallery running from one end of Hill Street to the other and should encourage people into town after hours to look at the window displays.
Lets get things going!
