Street of Shame

[Drronin]

"I'd been inspired by a line in Playboy magazine - "If you can't get laid out of the coffee shop at the Grace Hotel, you can't get laid anywhere in the world.""

 

Ah, that must be what I came across as well. I know pre-internet days - early 90's - I saw something about the Grace Hotel that made me go there but I had long forgotten what it was. The Grace Coffee shop was great until the mid-90's - chock full of freelancers till the wee hours of the morning. Then the Arabs and their preference for larger women took the place over and an era came to an end. All the great fl places are only memories now.

 

As to lower Suk - it just gets worse and worse - I avoid it now after 2am - nothing has ever happened to me but it always feels like there is a potential for trouble smacking you in the face or going thru your pockets.

 

[simie]

Yes no doubt in my mind lower Sukhumvit has gone down hill big time especially late at night in the last few years. And I also avoid it unless I have to go there for some reason.

Simie.

[Bangkoktraveler]

Yes no doubt in my mind lower Sukhumvit has gone down hill big time especially late at night in the last few years. And I also avoid it unless I have to go there for some reason.

Simie.

 

 

I have been saying that for years. Too bad, it used to be a lot of fun.

[gobbledonk]

I vaguely recall staggering into a bar in the vicinity of the Grace on NYE, purely to use the loo, and the only girls I remember from that brief experience were two very heavily made-up lasses from Eastern Europe. Friendly enough, but who could get *that* drunk ? The Arabs are most welcome to them.

[passingthru69]

My first trip and then 2 after I stayed at the Gace.

My one buddy stayed there and since he was my tour guide first trip away we went.

That was early 2000.

I have not stayed there in almost 6 years now.

Have one buddy that still stays there every year.

He had been going there over 20 years now.

 

He keeps bitching about the new stayers at the hotel, but he keeps going back.

I did like the coffee shop even then was still kinda booming.

[exit2dos]

I dont know that the area in question has ever been too flash, at least in my experience, but I find the sheer number of 'bandit' Arab women, complete with that hideous nose 'protector', the most disturbing part of the whole freak show. What the hell are they still doing wandering the streets at midnight, anyway ? As for the Farang who troop through their with their families, what were they expecting ??

 

It was never the garden spot of Bangkok. If they want a sterile environment head to Siam Square. The hypocritical bar owners are bitching because they are missing out on the fat bar fines. They are so self righteous about drugs and streetwalkers. They are not selling health food and girl scout cookies. They make their money off alcoholics and selling fish. Alcohol's a drug.

 

The grand plan is to make Sukhumvit an upscale mall from Siam Square to the Emporium.

 

As far as those black widow weirdos, where else are you going to see that without venturing into a country that wants to kill you?

 

[Gadfly]

The grand plan is to make Sukhumvit an upscale mall from Siam Square to the Emporium.

 

That may be the plan, but its going to be damn hard to implement in Thailand's current and very uncertain situation.

 

I recall a few years back a post about this grand plan that included that claim that in a few years - right about now actually - Sukhumvit would be an upscale mall from Siam Square to Emporium (one of the advantages of older Thai board). Doesn't seem to have happened. Indeed, the opposite seems to have occurred in the lower sois of Sukhumvit.

 

As you head towards Emporium and Thonglor from the lower sois of Sukhumvit, however, things have gone upscale. Not in the form of an emerging giant upscale mall, but interesting bars, restaurants and smaller upscale shopping complexes, like J Avenue, dispersed around the area. I can see that trend continuing, but I don't see the lower sois of Sukhumvit becoming part of a gigantic shopping mall in the near future.

[shygye]

Suk' anthem.

 

WPO46xvT0Xk

[exit2dos]

The grand plan is to make Sukhumvit an upscale mall from Siam Square to the Emporium.

 

That may be the plan, but its going to be damn hard to implement in Thailand's current and very uncertain situation.

 

I recall a few years back a post about this grand plan that included that claim that in a few years - right about now actually - Sukhumvit would be an upscale mall from Siam Square to Emporium (one of the advantages of older Thai board). Doesn't seem to have happened. Indeed, the opposite seems to have occurred in the lower sois of Sukhumvit.

 

As you head towards Emporium and Thonglor from the lower sois of Sukhumvit, however, things have gone upscale. Not in the form of an emerging giant upscale mall, but interesting bars, restaurants and smaller upscale shopping complexes, like J Avenue, dispersed around the area. I can see that trend continuing, but I don't see the lower sois of Sukhumvit becoming part of a gigantic shopping mall in the near future.

 

It's happening. Just go to the 5th sloor of the Emporium and look west at the new buildings. Washington Square will be knocked down soon and most of the old buildings to Asoke are vacant and ready for the wrecking ball. There's plenty of money around. What recession? Future Park Mall was so packed Saturday it felt like a sardine can. There were lines to get into all the restaurants it's hard to imagine Swenson's can come up with enough ice cream, there.

 

[Gadfly]

We're seeing different things.

 

Empty buildings - absolutely; plenty of them. Buildings that have been largely vacant for the past ten years. Ghost buildings that were never completed more than ten years ago, and no evidence that they will be completed. Just look at the ghost buildings at the Nana BTS station; more desolate than ever. Any board member can confirm that on their next trip to NEP, and that speaks volumes.

 

Higher vacancies in this area than before. Desperate offers of bottom basement deals just to fill space.

 

Ambitious condo projects on Sukhumvit failing to complete, with prospective buyers who bought "off plan" fighting with developers to get their deposits back.

 

Even closer to Siam Paragon, things aren't looking so far. Recall that the Central group bought the front of the British Embassy with ambitious plans to build a super shopping mall there a few years back. No shopping mall yet and not even any signs of construction. The project has been moth-balled for now.

 

CBRE, who always gives overly optimistic reports, now changing their tune.

 

If there is money all over down here, I haven't seen it. Nor has any real estate in this area so far.

 

And then, of course, the squalor that is the lower sois of Sukhumivit later in the evening. The changes I am seeing in this area are certainly not in the direction of a large shopping mall extending from Siam Paragon to Emporium.

 

And bear in mind that several years ago there were posts on this forum predicting that the lower sois of Sukhumvit would be part of a large shopping mall by now. The predictions about this major shopping mall extension have an appalling bad track record.