The two-way livestream installation between North Earl Street in Dublin and the Flatiron plaza at Broadway, Fifth Avenue in New York was temporarily suspended just days after it debuted due to “inappropriate behaviour” that included incidents of nudity.
It restarted at 2pm on Sunday following the pause, with a number of measures to help combat the behaviour, including reduced opening hours and technology that will blur the stream on both sides if the camera is obstructed.
The Portal will operate on reduced hours for the coming weeks running daily from 11am to 9pm in Dublin and 6am to 4pm in New York.
Speaking to RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Nollaig Fahy, the tourism innovation manager with Dublin City Council Culture Company, explained the reasoning behind the location in the capital.
“The reason it’s in that particular location is because we needed several key things to be available for the portal to exist. We needed services for power and Wi-Fi. We needed space and then we needed some iconic imaging for New York – and no better icon in this country than the GPO and the Spire right beside it.
“That’s what’s really caught the imagination of people,” Nollaig said.
He said it has made headlines and earned over two billion impressions around the world and the organisers are “open to suggestions” about future locations.
It will remain on North Earl Street for six months, when DCC can then choose to extend the lease if the project is deemed a success.
“This is the people’s portal. That’s the bottom line. That’s the message that’s coming back from right around the globe actually, but the new rules are designed to negate any of the issues that have arisen,” he said.
“I should say that there’s only a handful of people that have misbehaved. Everybody else has just really embraced the whole idea and concept of the portal and so the new rules are we’re going to restrict – and these rules will change I’m sure as time goes on – we’re going to restrict the opening hours.
“The key issue was the poor behaviour was being broadcast to the street in New York at a particularly difficult time because it’s rush hour time. Nobody saw the poor behaviour in Dublin when it was happening because it’s 4am or 5am in the morning and there’s no one there.”
It will now open between 11am to 9pm in Dublin, with the New York portal livestreaming between 6am to 4pm.
Blurring technology and further crowd control measures have also been introduced on both sides of the Atlantic to address the issues.
“The tech solution is the lens has a new design and it’s so that if anyone comes close to the lens, the whole screen will blur,” Mr Fahy said.
“We are also putting in new sensors that actually trigger if anyone goes near the portal structure itself. We’ve also agreed on both sides to put up barriers of some sort. We put planters, we thought it would be a nicer aesthetic, and then in New York, they’re actually circled the whole thing with barriers.”
Mr Fahy said the Portal has been successful as a piece of artwork, adding that “art is supposed to snap people out of their daily routine”.
