Silom Road wants to be more than a place for offices, vaginal stunts and vendors selling fisherman pants to hippies.
On Sunday, a pilot project to close the busiest stretch to traffic for a walking street market was held from Rama IV Road down to Narathiwat Road.
Bangkok’s most expensive neighborhood per square-meter, the Silom area has long been a place corporate executives intermingle with tourists and sex workers from the renowned Patpong red-light district.
Under the program, hundreds of vendors would be invited to sell goods, handicrafts and local goods from the capital’s 50 districts from 3pm to 9pm every Sunday in a bid to make it a weekend destination for locals and visitors alike. A report from state media did not specify whether other crafts such as bongs and “sexy DVDs,” commonly found there, would continue to be available.
Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said the campaign would stimulate the economy and give low-income earners a space to do business, as well as promoting tourism over the weekend.
Such a marketplace is also an olive branch from City Hall to address the unhappy vendors who’ve been displaced by the city’s attempts to rein in sidewalk commerce to improve traffic and walkability.
The program will start in earnest after the New Year holiday, and if successful the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration said it will be replicated elsewhere.
Photo: NNT
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