change in policy In the 1980s and 1990s, greater efforts were made to preserve Dublin's older buildings. Dublin Corporation's road-widening schemes were abandoned. Strict preservation rules were applied, keeping intact the remaining squares, though St Stephen's Green of the three southern squares had already lost much of its Georgian architecture. The 1960s had seen one of the earliest battles to preserve Georgian Dublin, in what became known as the Battle of Hume Street whose corner opened onto St. Stephen's Green. There an ultimately successful attempt by a property developer to demolish a block of Georgian houses hit the national headlines, and became a cause célèbre as students, celebrities and future politicians battled to stop the demolition of the Georgian buildings. The original buildings were lost, and the developer built Georgian style buildings on the site. By the 1990s Dublin Corporation became active in the preservation of the Georgian buildings; among the results was the restoration of City Hall to its eighteenth-century interior (removing Victorian and Edwardian additions and rebuilds), and the replacement of Nelson's Pillar (a monument on O'Connell Street which had dominated the skyline until being blown up in 1966 by republicans) by a new Spire of Dublin, the world's tallest sculpture, on the site of the old Pillar and which could be seen throughout the city. Temple Bar The change in attitude was reflected in the development of Temple Bar, one of the few parts of Dublin that survived the destruction of medieval streets by the developers of the Georgian era. It retained its original medieval street plan. As late as the mid 1980s, Temple Bar was seen as a poor, run down segment of the city, stretching in terms of length from the Old Houses of Parliament in College Green to Parliament Street, which faced City Hall, and which in terms of width stretched from Dame Street to the city quays. In the 1970s, Córas Iompair Éireann (CIÉ), the state transport company, bought up many of the buildings in this area, with a view to building a large modern central bus station on the site. This would replace the medieval streets and buildings (while the street pattern was medieval, most of the buildings were not, dating from the eighteenth or nineteenth century) by one large bus station with a shopping centre attached. However, delays in providing the financing led CIÉ to rent out the buildings at nominal