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ONE WEEK AFTER being unveiled, The Portal to New York on Dublin’s North Earl Street has been temporarily been shut down again, following what’s been described as “inappropriate behaviour”, including incidents documented on social media.
Described as “groundbreaking public technology sculptures” the connected portals are intended to form “an unprecedented visual bridge between these two iconic cities” with a 24/7 livestream.
The installation began life in Dublin relatively peacefully, playing host to long distance games of rock paper scissors, but has since been embroiled in controversy.
On Monday, Dublin City Council (DCC) said it would temporarily close The Portal and implement a number of “technical solutions” to combat reports of bad behaviour by those using it.
It was opened again yesterday morning but last night the local authority said that its efforts to blur elements of the live feed were “unsatisfactory”, and that it would be suspended again until a better solution could be found.
It follows reports of numerous incidents across the past week, including a man on the Dublin side pulling down his trousers and mooning New Yorkers on the other side.
Media in New York reported on several incidents occurring on the Dublin side, including the holding up of a swastika and an image of New York’s Twin Towers burning.
On the day of its unveiling, a woman in her forties was arrested after she was seen grinding against the art installation. Videos circulating on social media also showed Dubliners holding up phones with pornographic material and swear words displayed.
The bad behaviour hasn’t been restricted to Dublin.
In New York, OnlyFans model Ava Louise exposed her bare chest to a crowd of Dubliners – later saying: “I thought the people of Dublin deserved to see my two New York homegrown potatoes.”
“Everyone on the New York side really loved it, everyone on the Dublin side were pulling out their phones and filming it. Everyone had a smile on their face, they seemed to be really enjoying it,” she told The Irish Sun afterwards.
The fun hasn’t been embraced by The Portal’s founder, however. Lithuanian artist Benediktas Gylys, who is behind the project, appealed to the public to allow the Portal to remain suitable for younger people.
Speaking in New York, Gylys told RTÉ: “Definitely it’s about us humans creating the artwork together, but we need to make sure that it’s also family friendly.
“I think everyone should think of a seven-year-old child that is in New York that wants to experience and that wants to connect to Dublin and wave to people there,” he said.
Minister for Public Expenditure and local TD Paschal Donohoe condemned those responsible for the inappropriate behaviour. “I feel that the very small number of people who have been involved in inappropriate behaviour have let us all down,” he said.
“I hope the small number of people that are letting the rest of us down with that behaviour realise the impact it is having and that we can look at ways from a technology perspective that that kind of behaviour is diminished.”
In New York, security guards from private firms have been working at the site of the installation since its launch last week.
In a statement on Monday, founding company Portals.org urged participants to be respectful.
“Our goal is to open a window between far away places and cultures that allows people to interact freely with one another. We encourage people to be respectful and from our position as observers, we see that the absolute majority of experiences is on the bright side.”
Dublin City Council have said that they expect the portal to be switched back on later this week, with the installation set to run until the autumn.
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We’ve known for decades that Mediterranean diet is very healthy especially in older age. Why do we keep researching things where we already know the answer?
@Gavin: It’s about finding out why and how.
@Gavin: a lot of things we “know” are urban legends or old wives tales.
Important that knowledge is verified and understood.
No mention of beef? What about the pooooooor hard done by farmers, surely we’re not suggesting that the government should subsidise the production of healthier, more sustainable foods like vegetables instead of continuing to spend millions on beef subsidies.
@: 1. Beef is healthy in moderation. 2. The Beef industry is a big Irish exporter, so basically a strong economic resource.
There is also research that states that a carnivore diet that’s very heavy on red meats like beef is very healthy and provides many benefits over a normal diet.
I personally wouldn’t go for this but I think that what diet works best depends very much so on the individual and we shouldn’t go writing off certain foods because it doesn’t fit our narrative
@milton friedman:
If it’s such a strong economic resource why does it rely on subsidies? The EU is phasing out beef subsidies for a reason. Why should we be subsidising the production of something with taxpayer money?
As for the “carnivore diet” being “healthy”, that’s fringe stuff that goes against the consensus. Saturated fat is linked to heart disease, the science on that is pretty solid. Most of our micronutrients come from fruit & veg rather than meat.
Not saying for a second we should ban beef or anything, I’m just challenging this ridiculous idea that subsidising beef is the duty of our governments. If we’re going to subsidise the production of food (which is a good thing to prevent reliance on other countries), we should be subsidising healthy, economic foods. Beef is expensive to produce, produces far more CO2 and methane than the alternatives, and is largely unhealthy at the levels people eat it. You’ll find far more people eating too much beef than too little.
@: I don’t disagree with anything you have said; in fact I basically wholly agree.
I was just outlining why beef receives subsidies, mainly for the second reason. I’m not sure the power it has now, surely diminished, but Ireland was making agreements with countries based on supplying beef (Libya and China for example) in the past, so it is seen as a benefit to subsidize beef production opposed to other produce.
@John Black: The carnivore diet reduces all gut bacteria immensely, both good and bad. So while it lowers inflammation from the bad gut bacteria that live off things like carbs,it also reduces your much needed good gut bacteria and likely causes bad long term affects.
@John Murphy:
It also lacks vitamin C, a deficiency of which, causes scurvy. It’s a dangerous diet peddled by crackpots.
I wouldn’t call it a crack pot diet because it does show beneficial effects on a short term. But I agree it’s very dangerous for the average person to try.
I’d stick with a low carb high fibre diet instead.
Living in a Mediterranean climate boosts chances of ‘healthy’ ageing among older people as well
@Fergus O’Connor: absolutely and you get brown and wrinkly and can rock about in the sun naked as the day god made you all those years ago..
Did someone forget to mention the cheap glass of wine, the warm climate ,proper health system and early pension might also have something to do with it ?
@Ken Bramley: D’accord. C’est la vie!
Eating Mediterranean fish in the Mediterranean will prolong your life even longer
@Shane Cormican: An underwater eating session in the Med could drown you!!!
A BIG factor is climate they are more healthy because outside more therefore more active and its warm so helps with arthritis, would get a lot of vitamin D
Well seeing as fish now consist or varying degrees of plastic you’d probably be better on a Mediterranean vegetarian diet with an omega 3 supplement.
Just living in a Mediterranean environment would prolong your life, the fish unfortunately like everywhere else are probably Toxic
Yea,the price of fish in this country.The spanish hoovering up all the fish and we live on an island and we cant afford to eat fish every day.
Knowing (and practising) this since I was 5 (months), I couldn’t agree more.
Also, it’s importat to enjoy food, and prepare yourself. That’ll keep you healthy too.
Load o’ bollocks
More Fiber, moderate meat, less processed fat like margarine or oil for 3 Euro, less sugar – it causes inflammation, that’s it. Of course most important is exercise.
have your say