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The sharpness of colour is always excellent in these 1950s/early 60s photos

My official history of the ABC Cinema circuit, published by the British Film Institute, marks the exact site of the Forum on top of what was originally the Regent Hall of the Masonic Society. That was converted in the 1929/1930 period and was located with a street corner (Ethel Street) on the...

and here's the same spot just a few years later at the end of the 1960's. From up above this one but facing the same direction. The Five Ways roundabout not yet completed so the memory of the original to regular travellers by then not distant.

Post 706 is when the Birmingham Post and Mail had an office in New Street. The sign A38 points down the ramp at Stephenson Street. Date would be 1950 when Labour had to call an election because the 5 year government period had run out, or just 12 months later when the period of government after...

Photo of Spiceal Street very 'special' Lyn, isn't it? In 1958 a record of peaceful progress after the Second World War about to be shattered by a period of unimagined change. By then the bulldozers had started to move in on Smallbrook Street in the vicinity of the Scala Cinema and were working...

Post 706 is when the Birmingham Post and Mail had an office in New Street. The sign A38 points down the ramp at Stephenson Street. Date would be 1950 when Labour had to call an election because the 5 year government period had run out, or just 12 months later when the period of government after...

There is probably someone still facing the screen at the Odeon, New Street having died in the auditorium in about the year 2000 judging by how often you see staff in there. Or doesn't that count?

Re: Aston and lozells pic reposted... Talking about a "star".. in posting no.3 of a couple of days ago, the picture of Aston Cross and the photo of the 'Lucky Star' driving school car aiming towards the white mini coming the opposite way. I'm sure the Instructor will be "Thanking his Lucky...

Lyn's photograph (post No.125) has SO much detail and information, not least because it typifies the rapid (and downward) haste of Birmingham into modern madness. Forumers might like to notice that the film poster on the right of the right-hand ladder is advertising Clint Eastwood in "For a...

Maggs, the Cobden photo is one of my favourites too. So much historical detail and the rainy streets which we knew in the 50's and 60's. I think its different rain nowadays, more the pity. We used to be able to smell the freshness afterwards but nowadays its just the pong of discarded take-aways!

Here is the Cobden without scaffold. Date quoted is 1955.

And here is the very same location 25 years later much further towards the Town Hall on this occasion. As everyone will see Galloways Corner is still its thriving building yet only a few years later than this 1963 picture nothing but a flat bit of grassland. War damage? My bottom!! My parents...

It still is a rookery of crime and wretchedness with the Midland Bank on what is now our right-hand corner. (Oops, 'allegedly'. Don't want to startle the forum's lawyers!)

And here's our beloved Exchange Building once again.....not! Photograph evidently taken while the Midland Bank still being completed and bereft of any charm.....still is!

Yes there's so much period charm. Just wonder who the size 20 bloomers on the line belong to, the ones that are a danger to passing aircraft. Any idea Lyn? No assumptions from this end of course....

Those particular type of shelters I remember very clearly: your hands got glued to the metal railings in the winter, and you got 1st-degree burns touching them in the summer!

Going off the exact Temple Row location topic-wise just slightly, the up-market Barnby's toy shop was immediately next to Kardomah in the Arcade.

To help members get more conclusive with their memories of Windsor Arcade, here's two shopping-day photographs of the site in the 1950's. The second seems to be taken from inside the arcade looking towards Bull Street (is that Lewis's in the distance?) The first seems to be taken out into the...

That's the rear of the Educational Institute on Suffolk Street on the left there.(Photo on Post 206)

The haircuts are very spartan too!