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New Street City Centre Birmingham

This 1957 view of New Street looking towards High Street makes we wonder if road signage was any easier to grasp than today. A nice view of Marshall and Snelgroves to the left. Viv.

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Note the remnant of Hyam's / Horne's building in the background and the construction work beyond it. The Hyam's building would be demolished shortly after this photo.
 
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These two views of New Street must be near on 80 years apart. The second view is 1905, no date for the first one.

Remember Wakefield’s ? I bought a rucksack from there to go travelling. Don’t remember that Toffee Shop, can’t gave been there long. Viv.

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I had to lie in a gutter flooded like that in New Street opposite the Odeon one evening rush hour with a cop glowering and saying "get it moved" The car was a big old Daimler and although the engine ran it wouldn't move, the throttle linkage had detached under the front chassis, a quick fix but I was rather wet, :(
 
I had to lie in a gutter flooded like that in New Street opposite the Odeon one evening rush hour with a cop glowering and saying "get it moved" The car was a big old Daimler and although the engine ran it wouldn't move, the throttle linkage had detached under the front chassis, a quick fix but I was rather wet, :(
the joys of being a mechanic.:)
 
I always scan old photographs posted, to see if any of my family or friends, happened to be unwittingly caught on them. That has proved to be the case, with the more recent photograph of New Street posted @ # 370, which has my old friend Barry (in a suit, with his briefcase) walking past Wakefields. He was probably on his way back home after a quick pint with me after work! I worked with Barry in Edmund Street from 1975 until 1980 and we both left on the same day. We then both took a month off, before starting our new jobs in Aston and in his case, Sutton. Happy days and it was nice to see my good friend once again. From that, I would guess that the photograph in question, was taken sometime between 1976 and 1980.
 
I often look at people in old pics to see if anyone I knew was in them and started a thread about it. The third pic in the thread is one of my favourite forum pics. Only one forum member spotted herself in an old pic but I have never spotted anyone I knew.
I suppose I could have given the thread a better title ... but back in 2013 I didn't ... :rolleyes:
 
That’s great John. Many of us also do as you have by scanning these images for those we know. But I’ve not found anyone yet, or at least not been 100% sure.

I asked about a “Toffee shop” in post #370, but of course it must be Sarah’s “Coffee Shop”! A distortion of the image. Think it was once the Kardomah coffee shop. Viv.
 
The quality of the text of this snippet is not great but it offers some nice glimpses of New Street’s buildings, occupants and businesses c1817. Viv.

CB8D72AA-DEAB-4ED0-83F5-1C01041535CD.jpegA06AD77B-3DA2-43BD-B35B-215AFFBE0484.jpegSource: British Newspaper Archive
 
The council tried fireworks ...
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No now. A combination of pigeon spikes and farming techniques have reduced starling numbers significantly.
That's good to know...they were mostly in Victoria square. They tried various things to get rid of them in the 50's including very loud horns.
Dave A
 
Not come across the reference ‘Blitz Corner’ before although, it succinctly captures what happened here in WW2. The image is from the 1890s. The article refers to the ‘horse-road’, a term regularly used by my Nan but without the ‘h’. It’s rather scathing about women’s outdoors clothing of the time. Viv.

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Source: British Newspaper Archive
 
A 1947 view of New Street with the Exchange Building and Stephenson Place to the left and Corporation Street going off to the right. Above the Barclays sign on the Exchange Building I think it reads Samuel Barlow Coal Co Ltd. The building with the columns would have been Midland Bank Ltd. Viv.

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