2010

NZ2564 : Upper level walkway above Oxford Street & Durant Road

taken 15 years ago, near to Gateshead, England

Upper level walkway above Oxford Street & Durant Road
Upper level walkway above Oxford Street & Durant Road
This view is in the opposite direction to NZ2564 : Upper level walkway above Premier Inn, Oxford Street and this stretch of the walkway must come as a relief after the tunnel-like section just negotiated if heading north. The footbridge that crosses the Durant Street dual carriageway is on the right at the top of the slope. The buildings on the skyline are the Central Library, the tall Bewick Court, and Hadrian House, a seven-storey office development.
Two level toon

A 1960s vision for Newcastle City Centre to separate traffic from pedestrians by creating a network of concrete walkways above access roads and traffic routes of the existing streets.
Geography reverses the situation somewhat at the Swan House roundabout which merges traffic coming off the Tyne Bridge with that from the Central Motorway and the City Centre. Here pedestrians are moved below the roads in subways but emerge again above the deep valley of Side under the Tyne Bridge.
The vision would have included Northumberland Street (where some new stores were built with shop windows at what is now first floor level), and further, but eventually money ran out and it was realised that too much of architectural merit would have to be sacrificed.
The development of the city in the 1960s and 1970s was marred by a corruption scandal involving a local politician, T. Dan Smith (aka 'The Mouth of the Tyne), and John Poulson, a property developer. Echoes of the scandal were revisited in the late 1990s in the BBC TV mini-series, 'Our Friends in the North' LinkExternal link
The 'streets in the sky' concept is explained in the Urban Translation Tour LinkExternal link
Plans of this and other Newcastle developments are discussed here LinkExternal link


Creative Commons Licence [Some Rights Reserved]   © Copyright Andrew Curtis and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
Category: Walkway
This photo is linked from: Automatic Clusters: · Building that Houses [74] · Durant Road [6] ·
1:50,000 Modern Day Landranger(TM) Map © Crown Copyright
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NZ2564, 1067 images   (more nearby 🔍)
Photographer
Andrew Curtis   (more nearby)
Date Taken
Friday, 15 January, 2010   (more nearby)
Submitted
Thursday, 21 January, 2010
Subject Location
OSGB36: geotagged! NZ 2517 6461 [10m precision]
WGS84: 54:58.5283N 1:36.4985W
Camera Location
OSGB36: geotagged! NZ 2519 6459
View Direction
Northwest (about 315 degrees)
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Image classification(about): Geograph
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