Laura Colgan OUR VOICE IN NEW YORK Dirty Old Town is now a sad reality
DUBLIN NOT WHAT IT WAS
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EVERYONE should be proud of where they came from.
Since moving away from home, I don’t understand people who have nothing good to say about their home country.
Lack of opportunities, a desire for more and fears about people and places changing are valid and common reasons for moving away and staying gone.
But they don’t make home a bad place. A sense of nostalgia isn’t much better, though.
Having rose-tinted glasses about a place that shaped you but wasn’t a nice enough place to stay seems hollow.
I haven’t been gone for long. And I’ll be back.
Ghost
But my memories of Dublin from just over a year ago is that it was a ghost town.
During a trip home in December, no amount of Christmas lights or festive decorations could hide that Dublin isn’t the city it once was.
It should be easier to transport myself home soon as a Portal, an art installation, will create a visual bridge connecting New York City to Dublin.
Innovative
The technology sculpture will provide a livestream from the Flatiron in midtown Manhattan to O’Connell St.
Visitors will be able to see what’s going on in both cities and establish real-time connections.
It’s innovative, state-ofthe-art and a beautiful way of transcending borders.
But I can’t help but think New Yorkers will be disappointed in real-life Dublin. There are no green fields, stunning scenery or traditional Irish buildings. The image of Ireland gone by. Not that New York is much better. It’s dirty, littered and has a host of its own problems. The social issues are just as prevalent and its reputation as being a big, bad city is accurate.
The cities on both sides of the Atlantic aren’t all that different. It’s just that the expectations for the Big Apple and the Big Smoke aren’t the same.
The portal, which aims to experience our world as it really is, might in fact reflect the true state of the world.