On Oxford Road just near St Peters Sq there's a lovely old cinema that is to be demolished in the near future. Opened in 1930 this beautiful faux Art Deco exterior is now a delapadated shell of a once glamourous interior. The councils plans to redevelop the St Peters Sq area are no doubt good for the city centre but when buildings like this and some others near by are sacrificed for modern concrete and glass blocks it's not something I can get too excited about.
Ten/fifteen years ago the Manchester city council seemed to be all about refurbishing the buildings in the city. A city with a great history that had lost its way. Bringing them into the modern day with a new purpose. The corn exchange and the printworks for example. The foundations of these buildings were destroyed by the IRA bomb in 1996. A lot of money was spent regenerating these structures. Now there's buildings that are nowhere near as bad which are simply being left to rot or replaced. Manchester seems to be trying to create a new history for itself (something it's always done) but it's cutting out its true past. That whole 50 year period after WW2 isn't recognised. Who's Tony Wilson is a question anyone under 15 would probably struggle to answer yet it was people like him in the thatcher years that kept this city alive and helped make it what it is. This city owes a lot to the legacy of Tony Wilson and one illegally parked van yet it only seems to remember its industrial heritage and it's modern economic success.
Anyway rant over.
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