They promised a new destination for Belfast, bringing together a new way of working, living and shopping in the heart of the city centre. The all-singing, all-dancing ads proclaimed: “Tribeca Belfast is a new area focused on bringing together the old, the young, the brave and the curious.”
Now we hear the total debt accrued by the owner of the Tribeca properties reached almost £110 million last year, accounts published by Companies House suggest.
North Street Arcade is in the centre of the plan, which reimagines the elegant thoroughfare which robbed so many of their livelihood when it burnt down in 2004. Five years beforehand I’d taken a walk down the Arcade. Here’s how I recorded this gem of Belfast’s history...
Looking BackThis is a pre-war Art Deco arcade in the shape of a dog’s hind leg, linking Donegall Street with North Street. It was fascinating for anyone who cared to wander through. People avoided the arcade because there was limited shopping but since the security gates were removed it has begun to pick up the pieces. “We were killed by the gates,” is the common cry, “but now we’re a happening place.”
High, wide and handsome, it’s bright by day with tall walls and glass ceiling, a sweep of old style shops with big square windows and narrow doorways, green marble and bronze trimmings. In one shop window sit a row of young women all waiting for the tattooist.
‘It used to be bombs and bullets, it’s now just a dump and derelict’ -........