47 Queen Street

Here's yet another of those old riverside warehouses reused as offices, this one is next door to that C4DI building I showed the other day. It's also the offices of Wykeland the development company that is building the C4DI site so that's handy.

The weekend in black and white is here.

Framework

The new  C4DI building is coming along nicely and is due to open in October.

Making a start

The public pathway by the river has reopened now that they've finished knocking down whatever buildings stood in the way and work on the C4DI thing at the old dry dock goes on its merry way. Scaffolding down to the floor of the dock is a development though I'd be a tad wary of that dock gate patched up as it is with bits of wood and expanding foam. Still it's not visibly leaking. (The circus tent in the background was to do with the Freedom Festival event that this year attracted thousands more than ever before)

While I was away

I've only been into town once in about two months or so, so I missed the official opening of this, the C4DI building, that is going to be the fountain of so many brilliant ideas that we will all live happily ever after in a digital wonderland. While the future maybe bright the once gleaming brass skin is already going a bit grubby, sorry, that should read gaining an impressive patina. Work is well under way on the rest of the site and the old dry dock is finally dry with some sort of construction going on in it.

"Shocked to see the state of the city of Hull ..."

I've posted before about the old fruit market area around Humber Street. Nearby there's a place called Hull Art Lab which was once a potato merchant's building. Usually it's locked up but the other day the doors were open ( I suspect malfeasance). So I peeped through the gap to see what's what. Basically it's empty, as in deserted , with just these scribblings decorating the place. The writing on the floor "I was even more shocked to see the state of Hull, fires were burning everywhere" is, believe it or not, a quote from some testimony given to the BBC's WW2 People's War archive! 

I've just found out it's been closed since November 2006 and presumably standing empty for eight years. Anyhow the place is now open to the elements and naughty folks so I don't know what will become of it.

Postscript: I am reliably informed that this building, or rather the space it occupies, will be part of the centre for innovative digital companies (C4DI) that I mentioned last October (here).

Breaking eggs

Demolition seems to be the order of the day down Queen Street what with the old Wellington House knockdown and now the clearance for the C4DI scheme by the old dry dock. Good, I say, and about time too.

All that remains of the Hull Art Lab that I posted back in May.

This was a pub called Ruscadors which I have never been in and now never will.

Deep Piles

It's not all falling down in the old town. At the new C4DI site work is underway to put in the necessary supporting piles. It seems a company called Aarsleff have been given the task of ramming steel into the Humber's muddy shore. Pile driving is not something you can do quietly and the noise from the operation nicely echoes off the Deep's walls. I recorded it just for fun. It's really not pleasant but it took me back to when I was a youngster living in Hartlepool and they built an atomic power station across the way, the pile driving went on for what seemed like two whole years; now that was tiresome.

The iconic view from from Sammy's Point

I don't know if you local paper has a buzz word that it uses over and over despite the writer not having a clue what the word means. With the local rag here that word is 'iconic'. So every old building becomes iconic, bridges become iconic, fried mashed potato patties become iconic, the very snot from kid's noses is a runny green iconic splurge. So, in the manner of the iconic Hull Daily Mail, we have here on the left in the background the iconic Humber Bridge, moving across Hull's iconic water front, the soon-to-be iconic C4DI building, the obviously iconic Holy Trinity, the newly iconic Millennium Bridge and the gloriously iconic Tidal Barrier. I'm standing in front of the iconic Deep and I realise I forgot to mention the iconic River Hull and iconic Humber with attendant iconic mud. Those clouds passing by, yup, part of the iconic Hull sky ...

Finally a plan ...

Welcome news that at last something will be done with this site that sits opposite the Deep, Hull's major tourist attraction, which must be off-putting to any visitor. This is become a centre for innovative digital companies, C4DI,  with the dry dock becoming a public amphitheatre! (see here). Yes I found it a bit difficult to come to terms with the fact that the Council agreed to this sensible and creative plan. After all there were the usual nay-sayers from the Civic Society wanting that derelict building with no roof saved as it was once a Georgian stable! (I cannot for one minute imagine that the Georgians paused and gave thought to the mediaeval hovels they knocked down to build this in the first place). When finished rumour has it 450 jobs might be created well whatever happens it's right next door to Humber Street and all that's going on down there and with plans for Castle Street to be improved it seems joined up thinking is going on at last. So the timetable is that in 18-24 months and with £14 million spent all this will be transformed. Well I can dream can't I?

Rusty bits

 

This is part of the C4DI redevelopment of the dry dock that I've mentioned so many times you're probably bored by it. Since these pictures were taken the rusty leaking old lock gates have now been patched up and the dock is now dry at long last. Unfortunately the little pathway that runs around the river edge was closed as they take a dim view of hitting passing pedestrians on the noggin with flying debris. 

Today's first of the month theme for City Daily Photo is 'Rust and Ruins' .

Bold as brass

The latest on the new C4DI building is that it is now getting a cladding of shiny brass tiles. This is just the first of, I think, four new buildings for this site.

An interesting development

Well, turn your back for a few weeks and all kinds of things can happen. The skeleton of the new C4DI building at the river mouth has gone up like an enormous Meccano set. Plans and drawings are one thing but do not convey how imposing and impressive a building this will be, nor how it complements the Deep's angular construction on the other bank. I like it, it may not be everybody's taste but, no, I think it's just fine.

Short term view

The recent demolition of Wellington House and the clearances made for the new C4DI buildings have made a little space for a this view of the tidal barrier and the Millennium footbridge. Enjoy it (or not) while you can for new buildings will sprout up soon to block out this vista. The security fence around the site has images of what is planned, something new and definitely different.