Ly Thuong Kiet Street: Bustling new town

(Baonghean) - When Vinh City began to speed up the construction, Ly Thuong Kiet Street was expanded, becoming bustling and bustling, making many people who had returned after a long time surprised and... "lost in the street"! Because, for example, the beginning of the East side of the street where it intersects with Le Loi Street, was once just an idea to build new urban high-rise buildings, or the end of the West side was already a crowded residential area...

Until the late 90s of the last century, the eastern half of Ly Thuong Kiet Street was just a deserted swampy area with a few patches of water spinach and a few large ponds for raising fish. At this time, at night, the fields were lit by the lights of people who used electric shocks to "check" them; occasionally, the fishkeeper had to crawl out of the small hut to flap his fan and shake his hands to be on guard... During the day, that deserted swamp could be an extremely attractive natural world for the children in the surrounding poor residential area, but at night it was a dark space that made life more mysterious, somewhat isolated from the city and the complexities of the dilapidated boarding house area behind the old Vinh Bus Station.

Ly Thuong Kiet Street

At the same time, urban managers intended to move Vinh Bus Station to the northern suburbs of the city and plan new urban areas here. Thus, Chu Van An Street (connecting Cua Bac Market on Le Loi Street to the old location of the Traffic Hospital on Truong Chinh Street) would be expanded to take on the role of the central artery for the southern area of ​​Le Loi Ward. And many people in the street never thought that there would be a new road opened here, causing the population and the street to quickly change to the bustling form as it is now.

In fact, Ly Thuong Kiet Street has literally and figuratively brightened up a "depressed area" of Le Loi Ward. In addition to restoring order to the Vinh Bus Station area, which had long been plagued by social evils, it has also completely changed the rhythm of life in residential areas that are mainly poor civil servants, laborers, agricultural cooperative members who farm, cyclo drivers, porters... living in closed "villages in the middle of the city"; there are neighborhoods where urban civilization for them was almost only about electricity and clean water being brought to sell to households! Many households raise 4-5 cows, then chickens, pigs, dogs, and environmental pollution due to "littering awareness" and lack of wastewater drainage to the point that a block party cell had to include the situation in a resolution. Even when Ly Thuong Kiet Street was newly graded with crushed gravel, during harvest time, straw was spread thickly on both sides like a village road...

In the mid-2000s, when the alleys were opened to new roads, it was also the beginning of the "waves" of land fever. Both sides of the road were planned to be divided into residential plots, many "original" houses with large gardens were gradually sold, the life of the people gradually became more vibrant due to the influence of the "people's contribution" lifestyle and the speed of road construction in large projects. Thousands of cubic meters of land were filled in ponds, swamps for private hospitals, hotels, and offices to spring up. And perhaps, the first residential high-rise to be built was the 5-storey house of a businessman from Ukraine on the eastern side of the road. The husband was a man.mysterious, suddenly in the country, abroad, the construction was supervised by the wife who dressed and spoke "country" from a midland district, had a lot of money but she still rented a cheap room to live, and lived very frugally. Yet she was definitely a classy person, the first person to bring something new in the eyes of the original residents of the North side of this eastern street. Ly Thuong Kiet Street was also immediately chosen to build a new office for the "headquarters" of Le Loi ward...

When the land fever reached its peak, the Ukrainian Vietnamese built a house and rented the facade to the Van Minh luxury sleeper bus company to sell tickets. Later, the Van Minh bus company rented it as an office. He and his wife moved to Cua Lo to open a hotel and lived there. Until now, no one here knows what he looks like. Stories about his house also faded when private hospitals such as Minh Hong, Thanh An, and the massive Dong Bac hotel sprang up on both sides of the road, along with other residential buildings with majestic architecture and bustling auto parts dealership services, paint dealerships, and high-end wooden furniture... There were a few duck hotpot and hill chicken shops that opened but had few customers, and the only place to "play" was the Suoi Mo karaoke house, which closed after a while, even though the kids who sold the land also spent quite a bit of money there. Later, the restaurant "Quan ngon ba mien" opened on the North side opposite Vinh bus station, considered a notable culinary address until now on Ly Thuong Kiet street.

Along with Van Minh bus company, a few other small private passenger transport companies also came there to open ticket sales points, gather trips, and form a small auxiliary bus station with many other services right after Vinh bus station, but the hustle and bustle that somewhat disrupted traffic order made the surrounding residents somewhat unenthusiastic about the new road. When the land market began to freeze a few years ago, construction on both sides of Ly Thuong Kiet street stopped, and the street was tinged with a nostalgic look. But at this time, along with the international standard kindergarten project that was pushing construction progress, and wide alleys were opened to new urban areas, the bustling brick and mortar scene returned, many households moved out onto the street to do large and small services, some poor cyclo owners changed their lives thanks to that, their children now rode cars around the city.

If the eastern section was once the expectation for a new modern urban architectural standard, the western section of the road was quite difficult to clear the land because it was opened through a residential area to cut Truong Chinh Street connecting to Nguyen Truong To Street (old Bai Than intersection), creating a "gateway" for a large area of ​​Dong Vinh, Hung Dong to connect to the city center. This section is a typical example of Vinh's street-front residential architecture today with a few "super thin" houses built on strips of land sandwiched between the new road and the diagonal alleys behind. This section gradually formed a specialized business of paving bricks, electricity and water for construction. Beer and breakfast stalls also flourished, more "luxurious" were dog meat stalls, fish noodles, grilled pork fan-grilled between grocery stores and car washes. The rhythm of Ly Thuong Kiet Street then had its full meaning.

I used to live on that street for a few years, and occasionally returned, surprised by the rapid changes here. Friends who used to go back and forth now go to the South and the North to do business, without phone numbers, and when they come back to visit their old house, they wander around and "get lost". In the future, when the Northwest of Dong Vinh and Hung Dong becomes more urbanized, and strongly connects to the center, Ly Thuong Kiet Street will be the new street that will sweep away the city's rhythm and erase the memory of the "trough" of the past...

Article and photos:Sam Temple