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Street furniture

A No 79 in this forum pic at the terminus by a not very attractive shelter which has some roof decoration but has the look of a transport system being run down. In the 1950s everyone was looking for modern things and thinking back to my own thoughts at the time, I have to say I never really noticed the trams had gone ... too busy having young fun ...
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https://birminghamhistory.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?t=15453&p=470402#post470402
 
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Viv: I am just surprised that many more have not been stolen, either as collectable, or for their metal value: Do these street name plates have a metal value?

oldMowhawk: I suppose if I am honest, 40 years ago, I would never have bothered a bit about Birmingham road signs, or Birmingham architecture. Like the majority of us, I too was enjoying life. It is only as one gets older, maybe a little wiser, that we begin to appreciate our cultural history, our surroundings, our background, and reflect on the world that made us into what we are today.

Eddie
 
A lot of the more modern road signs get graffiti tagged or vandalised. The old ones get repainted. Some of the old ones if damaged, usually get replaced with the modern equivalent.


The new ones have Birmingham.gov.uk on them.
 
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standerton said:
I used to work for a company in Yorkshire who had one of the first Elliott computers. it was in a small room with a static mat at it's entrance. People came from far and wide to pay homage to this machine....which was soon to be eclipsed by the Sinclair hand held. Happy days!!
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I notice that the Yorkshire Film Archive has a film of one being installed at Reckitts in Hull. Needed 5 or 6 men to move it !
 
A couple of forum pics showing Birmingham's tram and bus shelters. The first one in Dale End probably installed early in Edwardian times and still there in the 1920s. The roof is most decorative, and in those days the BCT called their trams 'cars'.
berniew said:
I'm pretty sure this was from this forum but it's a smashing pic
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The second pic shows post war austerity bus shelters in New Street. In the 1950s I often waited in those shelters for the 188 Midland Red bus after having a good night out ... seems like only yesterday to me ...
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stars said:
Hi
Here are a few more photos of our lovely Birmingham.
Image8_New_St_1951~0.jpg

Regards Stars
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Oldmohawk's picture of New Street brought back many memories. If I remember correctly, the large space on the left hand side of the pic was usually known as the 'Big Top' site. Not sure why. It was there due the bombing of Birmingham. As the photo show, it had become a car park by 1951. The gap to the left of the 'TIMES' building is also a bomb site. I can only marvel at how Birmingham has changed over the last 70 years, our parents would hardly recognise it but it is an improvement.
 
According to Carl Chinn, the Big Top area was used for a circus in a "Big Top" from the time of the bombing. I found the article on Google but Can't post a link
rosie.
 
Hi perry commoner there are quite a few pics of that area on the forum, Lyn posted one below, and lots of comment about it if you go to her post.
Astoness said:
ok folks here we go...
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co op from new st across the big top
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Quite a difference in those shelters Phil. I remember the austere ones. But as a youngster I was glad of any shelter on wet and windy days, regardless of what it looked like!! It's only now - being much more refined (?!) - that I appreciate the craftsmanship of those earlier bus shelters.


You've also got an old telegraph pole in the New Street view, between the Times building and the very tall lamp post. Few of those around today. I liked the smell of the posts when the sun had warmed them - creosote - like fence panels used to smell. Viv.
 
Another one of Lyn's pics of the New Street area. It's 1953 and the site looks cleared although circus tents can come and go. I've looked at this pic many times and only just noticed the display stand showing City of Birmingham Road Casualties. I'll put that down as the 'street furniture' in the view and if not, there are three old telephone boxes.
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Vivienne14 said:
Quite a difference in those shelters Phil. I remember the austere ones. But as a youngster I was glad of any shelter on wet and windy days, regardless of what it looked like!! It's only now - being much more refined (?!) - that I appreciate the craftsmanship of those earlier bus shelters. Viv.
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Hi Viv - Another forum pic of those shelters which were somewhat basic but I didn't notice at the time, I was just glad to catch the last bus before the limited night service started. I once waited one Saturday mid-day in those shelters wearing my best blue RAF uniform ... such memories ...
Phil said:
C & A Modes
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oldMohawk said:
Another one of Lyn's pics of the New Street area. It's 1953 and the site looks cleared although circus tents can come and go. I've looked at this pic many times and only just noticed the display stand showing City of Birmingham Road Casualties. I'll put that down as the 'street furniture' in the view and if not, there are three old telephone boxes.
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Failing that, there's always the 'Road Closed' signs. In the 50s and 60's these would have been a regular feature on most roads as the work for the Ring Road stopped traffic travelling it's usual route etc. plus all the new building work. In the 60s I remember Birmingham as one big, endless building site. So the Public Works Department must have had numerous Road Closed signs stashed away. Can't remember the last time I saw one of these wooden signs though. In fact I can't recall what's used these days. Viv.
 
Vivienne14 said:
Nice to see the 'posh' Midland Red service had shelters which were austere too! Viv.
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And I think the Midland Red were first in Birmingham to have doors on the bus platforms see post#399 - although a bus expert may prove me wrong. I was impressed at the time and always liked those Midland Red buses.
 
Phil,

Those shelters outside C & A have a sort of utility look about them. OK when the rain is not heavy and coming straight down, but when the wind is blowing with heavy rain, they were as useless as a chocolate teapot. And didn't they have asbestos roofs?

Viv,

I can't recollect seeing any of those Road Closed signs anywhere outside Brum and probably not even there nowadays. Plastic cones everywhere today, even in Crete.

Maurice
 
oldMohawk said:
Another one of Lyn's pics of the New Street area. It's 1953 and the site looks cleared although circus tents can come and go. I've looked at this pic many times and only just noticed the display stand showing City of Birmingham Road Casualties. I'll put that down as the 'street furniture' in the view and if not, there are three old telephone boxes.
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The road safety board gets more detailed attention here

https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detai...m-displaying-the-number-of-news-photo/3400190

This particular year is 1953 comparing statistics with those of 1952. I'm assuming the totals were added to each time a tragedy occurred, rather than a warning sign each Christmas as how to start the forthcoming New Year better, owing to the lack of seasonal decorations?
 
On an April morning in 1941 two items of street funiture stand solitary in New Street amongst buildings which the previous night's bombing had destroyed during one of the heaviest air raids on the city. Looming through the murk is a building which survived the bombing - known by many as Times Furnishing - and it survives there today but without the familiar old 'Times' sign.
New_Stbombed.JPG

pic above from shoothill

The pic below was taken 10 years later but the building vaguely seen in the earlier pic to the left of the 'Times' was so badly damaged it had to be demolished leaving the space seen in this pic. In the middle of the pic stands one item of street furniture providing somewhere for pedestrians to pause while crossing the street.
New_St_1951.jpg
 
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I don't think I'm going over the top whenever I compare this and other wartime photos of Times Furnishings with the world-famous photograph in the London Blitz of St.Paul's cathedral rising from the debris cloud swirling around it.

The picture became the front cover of a documentary book in the 1960's called The City that Wouldn't Die, I think by Taylor Caldwell. At any rate, the Times Building became Birmingham's photo icon and symbol of survival.
 
The photo of our poor old city, the night after a raid, shows the street lights still hanging suspended on wires across the road, how on earth did they survive.

My memory never ceases to suprise me, I would have taken a bet that C & A were always in Corporation Street !!!
 
OldMohawk's 1941 image of New Street calls to mind a day, not long after, when I was sitting perched on an uncomfortable, shiny, horse-hair stuffed sofa in front of what seemed to me to be a vast, blackened kitchen range with Staffordshire figures on the mantlepiece above it. We were in a litte terraced workman's cottage in High Street, Harborne which my grandfather shared with Mrs. Black, a dear old lady born in 1862 who looked after him. She had been in the city centre the day after and was describing the scene to my mother. How I wish I could now remember the detail of what she was saying. But what I do remember are the tears in her eyes when she said that the whole scene was so upsetting and confusing that she, a born-and-bred Brummie, had had to ask a passer-by exactly where she was.

Getting back on-topic..I am wondering when the bus shelters seen in a later photo first appeared in New Street. I seem to remember them from a very early date, almost contemporary with the bombing. Structures in keeping with the spindly, Midland Red austerity buses with their wooden seats.

Chris
 
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ChrisM said:
Getting back on-topic..I am wondering when the bus shelters seen in a later photo first appeared in New Street. I seem to remember them from a very early date, almost contemporary with the bombing. Structures in keeping with the spindly, Midland Red austerity buses with their wooden seats.
Chris
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Hi Chris - I've had a search for bus shelters in New Street in the 1930s/1940's and could not find a pic. The pic below (from Shoothill site) shows the other side of New Street on same day as the pic in post#409 and there is a bus stop for the 29 and 29a Kingstanding routes but it looks as if the BCT did not provide bus shelters in New St for Kingstanding folk. I only remember the Midland Red bus shelters outside C&A. Looking at these old pics reminds me of when I was very little and stepping over fire hoses in town but I have probably mentioned it in the Blitz threads.
1941_NewSt.jpg
 
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I think the bus shelters outside C & A Modes were the only ones on New Street as I don't think the pavement was wide enough to accommodate them anywhere else on the street. Also I don't think they appeared until after the war, as I have been unable to find any photographical evidence that they did. These photos date from 1949 and 1956.
 

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Hi Phil: After the war on the Odeon side of New Street were several bus shelters and people would form long queues all the time. I hope that there are some photos around because I can remember the shelters being there.
 
On the subject of bus shelters, I don't remember any others in the city centre like the ones below, but I could be wrong ! West Bromwich buses also used them. In the 1950s it used to be our meeting place for a chat about 10.15pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays after walking up from the old ice rink in Spring Hill. I had to keep an eye on the time because I needed to get to New Street in order to catch the last bus home. If I missed it or it was full, I had to get back to Greys in Bull Street where the Night Service buses stopped.
stars said:
Here are a few more of our members missing photo's
Snow_Hill_Entrance.jpg

Stars
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They were hand painting road signs in the 1950s as shown in the enlargement from a traffic scene outside Digbeth Police Station. The trams had gone and so had the overhead wires but the support cables and tracks were still there. Nice open top car in the pic.
DigbethScene.jpg
 
I went to school just a couple of miles south of this picture and tram lines were being dug up in the summer of 1956.
 
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