Le Hong Phong Street: Bustling city life

(Baonghean) -Passing by this road every day, every street corner, every tree on the sidewalk is still familiar, although the street's appearance seems to change every day due to the continuous opening of services and the new renovation of offices on both sides. Le Hong Phong Street is considered one of the central streets that create the typical urban rhythm of Vinh city...

A corner of Le Hong Phong street.

Someone said, seemingly rightly, that Le Hong Phong Street is one of the streets that clearly reflects the chronology and spatial changes of Vinh's development process. Le Hong Phong Street is more than one kilometer long and is considered to retain many old street imprints because the street has no high-rise buildings and although it is now brightly lined with signs and facade decorations of services, behind it are still rows of houses and kiosks from decades ago.

The first pride of Le Hong Phong Street is probably that it is home to large schools and training facilities, such as the Provincial Political School, high schools with a long tradition such as Huynh Thuc Khang, Phan Boi Chau, Hoa Sen Kindergarten... Among them, Huynh Thuc Khang School, whose predecessor was Vinh National School, is one of the three National Schools opened by the French government in the Central region since 1920. There are many famous figures here such as Dang Thai Mai, Nguyen Canh Toan, Hoang Xuan Han, Hoai Thanh, Nguyen Xien... And, in a class of elderly intellectuals from the three provinces of Thanh - Nghe - Tinh, who, through their life experiences, cherish and follow the development of their homeland and country, must have always remembered the memories of College de Vinh and Huynh Thuc Khang High School later to be proud of their education.

People who love the street once thought that the authorities had a purpose when they established Phan Boi Chau High School for the Gifted on this street, as if they wanted to multiply the traditional education of Huynh Thuc Khang School?! So maybe it was also a purpose to complete the pride of the street by attaching a street nameplate named after the first General Secretary of the Party to the street that intersects and connects with the streets named after revolutionary places (Phong Dinh Cang), the names of patriots in generations who heroically sacrificed for the aspiration of independence and freedom of the nation (Nguyen Thai Hoc, Nguyen Van Cu, Nguyen Duc Canh, Nguyen Thi Minh Khai). The street also gives people a nostalgia for the time of the city's post-war reconstruction through the oldness of the C7 and C8 buildings of the Quang Trung apartment complex, which according to the plan will soon be replaced by new urban high-rise buildings; or in the large, graceful sphere on the roof of the North Central Hydrometeorological Station headquarters...

Le Hong Phong Street was also once famous for its culinary addresses such as the "popular rice street" stretching from the Provincial Police Office to the Hydrometeorological Station, which has now been cleared; the beer and grilled food stalls that have gradually lost customers, giving way to newer types of businesses; or the "oxtail - hot wine" shop that has been reduced after being monitored by food safety and hygiene, but is still an address that attracts visitors from afar when they come to Vinh and want to enjoy rustic snacks in a street space that evokes the depth of memories of a Nghe An city. However, when talking about Le Hong Phong Street, we have to talk about the "coffee experience" with once-famous brands such as Mexico or steadily developing such as Cinema Coffee 2 and a series of new coffee shops whose owners do not focus solely on the quality of coffee, but also on the "@-time" service space aimed at young customers. The street also has more and more centers, supermarkets of tiles, interior equipment, which if you have time to leisurely stroll around and look around, can create a unique interest here.

Bustling fashion shops.

It turns out that the modernity of the street in Vietnam is not based on the criteria that everything is massive and large. Le Hong Phong Street in Vinh City has certainly proven that by the dynamism and sensitivity of the numerous small services that are continuously established, replacing each other with signs and facades full of advanced ideas, youthful and modern style, making people from far away who come to the street for the first time feel like the crowded streets of Hanoi and Saigon; there are snack shops, expensive branded clothing stores, cheap fashion stores; next are public services, other office-style services that are always crowded with customers, creating a bustling street hidden behind every street corner, every familiar green tree. Just a street, but Le Hong Phong street also shows the urban spread from the center to the development belt and towards the four suburbs, that is the bustling buying and selling that is compressed and then gradually diluted from the beginning of the street towards the Fountain Flower Garden roundabout down towards the end of the street towards the Customs roundabout.

According to the plan, the future urban highlight of the street will be at both ends with the new urban area replacing the Quang Trung apartment building at the beginning of the street and the administrative area at the end of the street. But even when that day comes, the street will still retain its own character as a calm, confident developing street with historical landmarks dating back nearly hundreds of years, such as Huynh Thuc Khang High School or Tam Phuc intersection where it intersects Nguyen Van Cu Street, a place that reminds people of a bustling time of the Indian neighborhood more than a century ago...

Sam Temple