Art and ugliness on Coney Street: Two sides to York’s retail heart

One man and his dog made quite an impression on Coney Street in York on Wednesday (November 26).

This man turned up on York’s busiest shopping street with nothing more than a bucket of sand, a trowel and a brush. Yet he used these unpromising tools to fashion this handsome hound.

Shoppers stopped in their tracks to watch him work on the sand sculpture. And once it was finished many gave donations and took photographs.

One woman who had run out of change asked if he would be back tomorrow so she could return with a gift. No, he said, but he would be returning before Christmas.

We wanted to ask more about him and his work but he explained he had very limited English.

But his work of art certainly contrasted with a rather uglier addition to Coney Street.

What looked like a giant disposable coffee cup, fashioned out of the finest plastic, was placed in the middle of the street outside Boots.

It was advertising a high street bank. But it added little but an unnecessary obstacle to the bustling street.