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Shop - can you identify please

I don't think its Lee Longlands, as the window looks a little closer to the floor and there is no doorway to the left of the window.

City Broad St Lee Longlands (2).JPG
 
Now I am thinking back to around 1950 + or - a year or so. In a side street off either New Street or Corporation Street, on the right and side heading in an uphill direction there was a place, not a shop in the normal sense, maybe a high class tailor. shoe shop or some other obscure business, that had a window like that. It was quite uncommon as far as I remember, I never saw another in the city, but of course there may have been. The notable thing about the concave windows was also the vault lights below (glass blocks set into the pavement to allow light into a basement). I believe the sandbags would be covering such a vault light.
This may jog a memory!
 
The thing is, in the photo Viv has posted the tape strips look like they have been placed to form an optical illusion it doesn't quite look right at the end by the two gentlemen standing in the doorway.
 
Phil said:
The thing is, in the photo Viv has posted the tape strips look like they have been placed to form an optical illusion it doesn't quite look right at the end by the two gentlemen standing in the doorway.
Click to expand...

i see what you mean phil

lyn
 
Phil said:
The thing is, in the photo Viv has posted the tape strips look like they have been placed to form an optical illusion it doesn't quite look right at the end by the two gentlemen standing in the doorway.
Click to expand...
I agree Phil. If you look at the end where the men are standing it appears to me that the side piece there is mirrored, you can see the reflection of the display board there. I believe that the actual front window is flat and the curvature is from the rear of the display area and the tape is attached to that. You can make out where the side and rear meet as there is a line there.
Not a very good way of describing what I see, sorry.
 
jmadone said:
I agree Phil. If you look at the end where the men are standing it appears to me that the side piece there is mirrored, you can see the reflection of the display board there. I believe that the actual front window is flat and the curvature is from the rear of the display area and the tape is attached to that. You can make out where the side and rear meet as there is a line there.
Not a very good way of describing what I see, sorry.
Click to expand...
You may well be correct. But what would be the point of the sandbags on the ground? The concave window I recall went from ground level, where the glass vault lights (glass) were and went out towards the street, but not beyond the property boundary.
 
There might be a cellar underneath that was used as a shelter that was covered in the street by those plates (if that's how you describe it) with small squares of very thick glass inset that allowed light into the cellar. Maybe the sandbags were covering these
 
Phil said:
The thing is, in the photo Viv has posted the tape strips look like they have been placed to form an optical illusion it doesn't quite look right at the end by the two gentlemen standing in the doorway.
Click to expand...

Phil strange thing is when I lived in William St 1955-69 , once you'd walked pass the main window of LL they did have a bow window with a handrail in front . So while you were waiting for the bus on a rainy night you could turn around and stand under cover looking through the bowed window . The large widow was too small anyway for LL
 
Thanks all. The more I’ve looked at this, the more Phil’s suggestion seems possible. it looks to me too like an illusion. The tape could have been placed in such a way as to create an illusion. Why would it have been placed that way? Most windows were taped in a criss-cross arrangement.

I think there’s part of a shop sign at the very top of the photo and some writing just under the first ledge.

Although I’m not sure about any of this. It was at the very start of the war, so could it have been a publicity photo done in such a way as to grab attention ?

Viv.
 
Mirror adjacent to the doorway?? Wasn't there a similar window in the Gazette Buildings (opposite Murdochs Pianos) in Corporation St?
 
I have the feeling that the premises I recall could have been in Temple Street or Cannon Street. But that was around seventy years ago. :D
 
Did'nt Marshall and Snelgrove, nearly opposite the Odeon have such a window? I've never understood why they were used.
 
As previously mentioned in post#9 the strips have been placed on to form an optical illusion when viewed from where the photographer stood. If it had been a real curved window a side wall would have been visible as shown below. Also placing the strips on a real curved window would have been very difficult. ... :)
Shop_Window.jpg
 
It’s a lot of tape and quite a detailed pattern just for the sake of preventing glass shattering everywhere. Becoming more inclined to think this was to grab attention - either for public info purposes or to direct attention to the business. Viv.
 
The shop owner was probably quite disappointed that the newspaper did not show the name of the shop in the picture and also stopped us positively identifying the shop.
:grinning:
 
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