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City Centre Photographs

I think this is a bit confusing as I believe looking at the photo they are in the process of covering the railway tunnel with concrete beams.After which the road approaching the Queenway Tunnel at the Suffolk st end would be built.The entrance to the Queenway would be to the right of the photo.Dek
 
jjj.jpeg
I posted this one on this thread because the last couple of pics have been Smallbrook St.
 
I was up in Birmingham the W/E, 1st time for some 15 yrs,to see my extended family, my cousin, and especially my Aunte Kath, 93 yrs young,(my God mother) it has changed out of all recognition, definitely not my old town any more, Pam my cousin drove me to New Street Stn, from Burntwood, Nr Cannock, via Gt Barr, Aston, through the tunnels and what was Smallbrook Ringway, looked exactly like part of New York USA?????????, New Street Stn is still a dirty Building site, well platform 12a is, seems it has been in reconstruction for at least 35 years?? I know the old centre was old but it was really beautiful to me and worked well, I really cannot say that about this new Birmingham, I thought all the one waying and street reconstruction was to make the city more vehicle friendly it was total gridlock and that was a Sunday? No not for me I found it neither welcoming or friendly just, well odd!!!!!!
paul stacey
 
Hi Paul, I agree wholeheartedly with your views on the new "Brum", what on earth have they done to our City.The way they have "boxed in" St Martins
Church in the Bull Ring is terrible.Its just as well we have our memories of the past because its bye, bye, Brum. Take care now Bernard
 
I could not agree more with both of you, I would not go into the City Centre from choice and it would not bother me one iota if I never saw it again before I die.
 
I think there is too much "rose tinted spectacles" here.

If you look at pictures of Birmingham for the 30s and 40s many of the buildings are filthy.

The Bull Ring and New St station of the 1970s were pretty awful.

I took many pictures of the area round Gas St basin and Broad St in the mid 1980s and it was terrible. Dirty canals, empty factories, cars and bikes dumped in the canals. I used to walk round the canals on a Sunday taking pictures in the 1980s and not see a person all day.

I know we have lost some fine buildings, but much of Birmingham is far better than it was in the past decades.

I suggest some of you go up to the area round Broad St today - the Convention Centre, the NIA, Brindley Place, the Mailbox, the Cube, the canals in that area.

Go up there on a sunny weekend and you will see hundreds of people walking around, people sitting outside in bars and restaurants, many tourists and visitors, and people taking photographs.

Or you can just sit at home and moan about how things are today.

Look at this lovely picture from the area at the back of the Convention Centre and remember how the canals there used to be (click on link).

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Pgn7OIs5wK8/TMmw440Kz9I/AAAAAAAACO8/VhD2QbGQWEc/s1600/IMG_4412.JPG

Here is how the area used to look (I took this in the early 1980s)

veryold2.jpg


Here is the same view today

View1Picture6.jpg

.
 
I of course do not wish to offend anyone!!, I am purely speaking from my heart, and although the old city of my childhood was smoky and grimy I loved it. If you are trying to tell me, Guilbert53, that, that cacoffiny, and hodgepodge of buildings, and chaotic road system I saw on Sunday, is somehow superior and better than the old city I remember from my childhood and youth, as "rose tinted" as it is. I am sorry but I disagree whole heartedly. I used to look forward to visiting the town centre and so did everyone I knew, my relatives told me that it has been years since any of them had visited, and I suspect that is true of a number of people, I found it totally uninviting and crass.
paul stacey
 
and i agree with you too paul...yes brum is cleaner now that it used to be of that there is no doubt but the heart as been ripped out of the city centre now..its almost unrecognisable and more geared up for the youngsters..i have never seen so many eating places spring up..poor st martins church is surrounded by them. and for this we have lost so my of our historical buildings....i am quite sure that if the powers that be could have got away with it st martins would have been demolished to build a KFC or Mc DONALDS..yes its a sign of the times and i do accept that but i dont have to like it..

lyn
 
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Astoness said:
but the heart as been ripped out of the city centre now.......
Click to expand...

When Joseph Chamberlain rebuilt the city centre in the 1870s he "ripped the heart out of the city centre". Many tudor buildings were knocked down and slums removed and they built or upgraded roads (New St, Corporation Street etc ), they built the Council House, the Victoria Law Courts and so on.

I am sure many of the people living in the city were unhappy about that.

The 1970s building of the ring road also "ripped out much of the heart of the city centre", with fine buildings knocked down, roads widened, underpasses dug, the old Bull Ring built, the exsiting 1970s library built, and New St station built.

I am sure many of the people living in the city were unhappy about that as well.

It seems a perenial thing in each era for Birmingham to try to "rediscover itself" and knock down the old and rebuild with the new.

Here is another "before and after" picture to show how Birmingham has changed. Believe it or not this IS the same view.

From about 1985, near Sheepcote Street and the NIA (National Indoor Arena)

View32Picture1.jpg


Now (2011)

View32Picture2.jpg
 
like i said guilbert i accept change but dont have to like it...not at the cost of bulldozing buildings that were good and strong i am not referring to the so called slums..chamberlain did a fantastic job but how long before his work is destroyed....i guess in another 60/70 years time people will be having this very same conversation as it will be all change again until it gets to a point where we will not have many buildings left standing that exceed 100 years old...where is the history in that..

lyn
 
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I was born in '41 and the Brum of my childhood was dirty and gloomy but so were all the other industrial cities.
When the city centre started to undergo a facelift in the early 60s people were excited at the modernisation that was going on.
The first big step forward that I noticed was when, having travelled from North wales with my late wife, I jokingly said "sniff that lovely Brummagem air !". She said, "to be honest, I can't smell any difference".
The Clean Air bill had taken effect.
 
maypolebaz said:
I was born in '41 and the Brum of my childhood was dirty and gloomy but so were all the other industrial cities.
When the city centre started to undergo a facelift in the early 60s people were excited at the modernisation that was going on.
The first big step forward that I noticed was when, having travelled from North wales with my late wife, I jokingly said "sniff that lovely Brummagem air !". She said, "to be honest, I can't smell any difference".
The Clean Air bill had taken effect.
Click to expand...
I said many years ago, and its still true, the planners have done more damage
to our city than ever the Luftwaffe did. Bernard
 
I am with Guilbert on this.

Just wanted to say that I agree pretty well 100% with the comments Guilbert makes. It is true that a lot of great buildings were lost in the various sweeping changes that have taken place over time but what we now have is vastly superior to what I recall when travelling from Billesley through to Handsworth (to school), to Hockley (to work at Joseph Lucas) and to Erdington (to meet up with family). What happened in the 1960's was often an abomination with its brutal and bland design but now I am proud again to show off my city to visitors from other parts of the country and abroad.
 
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This discussion can go on forever so why not look at it like this.
I have no fond memories of anything I did not like and/or enjoy, none whatsoever. In fact it would be true to say that if I did not like or enjoy something in my life time, it has been banished from my memory.
I do still have many countless good memories of Birmingham in the 40s,50s and sixties. I have fond memories of living in a back to back although it was a front one. I have fond memories of my school days although the cane was used. I enjoyed all my working life and I enjoy my retirement today.
Yes improvements were needed e some areas had been left to rot for a better word, but the entire city did not need to be buldozed and replaced with what can only be described as monstrosities which do not look as though they will be able to stand the test of time. The canals were very clean when they were used for their proper purpose, I know this because my dad and thousands of others used to fish in them, and catch decent fish.
 
Thanks to Bernard, Stitcher , Lyn, for replying to my comments, as I said it was from my heart, I know that change is inevitable that change will happen, it just seems to be so disjointed and not related to what people really want, but some vision of a remote board. Where, ho, where, is civic pride, and civic responsibility, gone with last of the Victorians, councils used to be endowed with desire to serve their populations, not any more I am afraid. I now live in a city where the council cannot be carried away with their own importance, and its the University that says what or can be built in its ancient centre "Thank God" it is still stuck firmly in its history.
paul
 
paul stacey said:
I know that change is inevitable that change will happen, it just seems to be so disjointed and not related to what people really want..
Click to expand...

I go up to Birmingham a lot, taking photographs of both old buildings and new ones.

I usually arrive at Moor St station and walk into Birmingham via the BullRing....and it is always PACKED.

I have 3 grown up children in their 20s and 30s, and they often come up to Birmingham with their partners and children and they often ONLY go to the BullRing and never set foot outside it.

I also said in my previous append, the area round the Convention Centre, Brindley Place, NIA, Mailbox and Cube is also always packed when I go up there, when in the 1980s and early 1990s it was deserted.

So it is not true to say that recent development are "not related to what people want".
 
You all know the old adage that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I have been to many industrial cities in Europe and beside some of the cities that where flattened since and in the war years, Brum still stands out for me, have you been to Liverpool, Manchester or Newcastle latley?
I do realy love my days out in our city centre.
We badley need a major river to run through our beloved city any ideas as we have now got a good beach!!
 
Bob

There has been talk for ages now concerning bringing the Rea back up to ground level through Digbeth. I know it's not much to start with but I'm sure with modern technology it could be made a little deeper and a little wider. I suppose nothing will be done until someone can work out an angle for making money from it.
 
I would agree with all that, but Birmingham does already have that in it's centre. It is called the canals , and guilbert gave a good example of where they already do provide a pleasant area. A little commercial perhaps , but still something many cities would be glad to own. Te idea of bringing the Rea to the surface could undoubtably provide a further addition , but, as Phil says, needs a sponsor
 
I'm not sure about the idea of bringing the Rea up to the surface. Some people are pushing the idea of landscaping Calthorpe park to make the Rea look "natural" there but it's in a 30ft deep brick culvert with about 10 feet of steep bank on top of that. Add to that the eastern side has a 20 ft high mound close in and they'd have to carve out an awful lot of landscape and wreck a lot of the park's facilities (football/cricket pitches, a kids play centre) to make the river vaguely accessible. I'm not entirely sure where the river runs around Digbeth. It seems to disappear underground or between factories before it gets to Rea St. Bringing it up would have to depend on what's on top of it and whether there'd be access to the banks.
 
Gas_St_Basin_(2).jpg
Surely just because buildings become 'grubby' (this happen in time all the world over) you don't have to demolish them, you can clean them up, restore them to their former glory, even alter their usage, as for the canals I spent many happy (and profitable) hours painting them in late 70's and 80's, sold over 40 watercolours in and around Gas Street basin, I certainly would not want to paint them now they have all been 'tarted' up for want of a better word. Must confess I am a bit of a romantic and maybe see things differently from down to earth folks. Nothing agaist cleaning the canals, although they were far worse in the black country, especially around Tipton where I have also painted. I should add my favourite subject was Gas St basin it self and I cannot ever remember seeing any rubbish there and as a painter you are observant and see things a normal walker/rambler does not. Eric
 
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Regarding the River Rae as a City centre feature, surely its far to small ? its been pointed out we do have our canals and we will have to be content with that (which i am!!!). Eric
 
Cookie

I don't think making the Rea deeper or wider would be much of a problem they would only have to build a weir on the other side of Digbeth. It would be the flood control that would cause problems, after all it was put down in a culvert because of the problems caused by flooding. Once this was achieved it would only be a matter of clearing some factory buildings and a bit of landscaping.
 
On the train from New Street to Litchfield, you pass Gravelly Hill and go under the "Spaggetti junction and there seems to be two quite wide rivers culverts ? what or who are these!
paul
 
The Rea runs into the Tame at Spaghetti junction so it is very likely them that you see from your train

Phil
 
Thanks Phil, why can't they join those and reroute them, say to gas Street basin running them through the city? too costly,? not feasible from a civil construction perspective?.
paul
 
zzz.jpeg1960.
A pedestrian underpass in the making, New Street and High Street.
 
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