Metropol

Sput wrote:Manchester city council did a wonderful thing and put a large archive online. Naturally it's horrible to navigate but there are some freakishly old images there. This, for example, is my street in 1940 and it is bizarre

There are a few dating back to 1910 but they're not really *of* anything

There are some old buildings behind the Arndale that look much like that but are in desperate need of renovation.

oh there are plenty of shitty bits, but I think the relatively good buildings are slowly encroaching into them. I know the area behind piccadilly station is a hell hole but they're going to move civil servants up there. Heh.

Sput wrote:

Beep wrote:

Sput wrote:

What a nice building.

It...no longer exists

What a shame, what moron would destroy it?

Beep wrote:What a shame, what moron would destroy it?

Something of an odd enquiry, given your opinion on the bulk of the people of Manchester.

Beep wrote:What a shame, what moron would destroy it?

Hitler?

I think this is what was here before YTV came along

Nice to see the area has improved slightly...
Leodis.org has a good archive of photos from the Leeds area.

I'm currently in the process of co-writing a book with some colleagues about a street in Newport which was split in half by the development of a square/shopping centre, which involved the cold-hearted demolition of several houses, an old library/museum building etc. I'll post some photos here shortly once I find them on the right disc.

Ebeneezer Scrooge wrote:I think this is what was here before YTV came along.

Third window from the left, top floor, was where Maggie grew up!

Quite - a true rags to riches story.

As promised, before-and-afters of Newport

This library on Dock Street


was knocked down and replaced with this (raised... i.e. standing on concrete stilts) square and library in 1964. Dock Street is now in two pieces - Upper and Lower.


This road, Bridge Street, http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&saf ... 09645&z=17


now has a roundabout in it and the entire left hand row of houses has gone


At the opposite end of Bridge Street, this lovely building, the Lyceum Theatre


has long gone, replaced with a cinema which is now a Travelodge.


Incidentally, that Queen's Hotel on the left is now a Lloyds#1 / Wetherspoons.

I love this kind of thing.

This is the Manchester Unity Building, a fantastic art-deco building in the centre of the CBD here, on the corner of the busier streets, Collins and Swanston.

This is, I believe, looking up Swanston St. towards the building shortly after it opened in the middle of the Great Depression.


This is from a similar perspective two years ago. The trams are still there although a lot of the 1930s-style blocks have been demolished and replaced.


Another fun one is the old gothic-style stock exchange building and ES&A Bank - as it was back then:


Now it's been taken over by ANZ, one of the larger Australian banks, with an office tower built next to it in the 1990s in a similar style (you can see that next to it on the left-hand side). It's been refurbished and is now partly used as a bank branch.


There are plenty of others around here, thanks to the building boom that took place in the late 19th century thanks to the gold rush taking place in Ballarat at the time. It made Melbourne one on the wealthiest cities in the world.