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Then & Now

Mike

Are you sure that's a Motel it looks more like an open Prison that we pass just outside Nottingham on the way to Skegness.

prison.JPG
 
Going through Trump country and having to stay at a place like that might be a bit like being imprisoned
 
I've not been to Texas but I've stayed in motels looking a bit like that in other parts of the US and in general the accomdation is excellent.
I did have one bad experience in California on what was one of their public holiday weekends, a Comfort Inns place that the room hadn't been cleaned, a turd floating in the loo, dirty coffee cups and the stink of stale tobacco, worse still it was the most expensive of the rooms on my travels, I cancelled and moved on. :mad:
 
Phil said:
Astonian

I've just made this up for you, Varna Rd as it used to be and what they replaced it with. It seemed a little extreme to demolish perfectly good houses even if they were a little on the large size (but they are screaming out for them now) to my mind they did this to rid the area of the working girls and the bad name the area had. As I say a little in the extreme.
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I agree...….The before I much better than the after!
 
there is a great piece of footage of the flyover that mikejee posted on this camp hill flyover thread

Camp Hill Flyover Footage

Camp Hill Flyover Footage, now long since gone, https://www.flickr.com/photos/21204411@N05/28823178160/in/pool-birminghamitsnotshit/
birminghamhistory.co.uk birminghamhistory.co.uk
 
The "then" photo of this image was a daguerreotype taken by Miss Elizabeth Stockdale Wilkinson in 1841 and is said to be the oldest photographic image of anywhere in Birmingham known to date. Miss Wilkinson was related to the Boultons and was a frequent visitor to Soho House.

The house stood in its own grounds that stretched from Winson Green Road back to the railway line on the other side of the canal to the prison and has now been replaced by Clare Court Care Home on Clinton Road.

Winson Green Winson Green House Albion Court Clinton Street.jpg
 
Lyn

Some more photos of Winson Green House, the first one is dated 1865, the second one is not dated but. I assume it's around the same time, the last one is dated 1905. I think the first two are rear and front and the third one is front again after some alterations.

Winson Green Winson Green House 1865.JPGWinson Green Winson Green House (2) .jpgWinson Green Winson Green house c1905 .jpg
 
A while back a member uploaded this postcard of Wake Green Road. I did say I would take a look as I only live just off Wake Green. I am quite certain it is looking towards Moseley village from the corner of Grove Avenue. It looks significantly different now, but I did pick up on the decorative masonry gate posts with the ball on top. Fortunately, two of them are still there.

134508

134509

134510
 
Ashted Circus, once just known as the Ashted Row and Dartmouth Street junction and the particular corner we are concentrating was the home to Holbrooks Sauces. Then along came some of our EU partners one night and bombed the premises beyond economical repair.


The buildings lay in a derelict state for many years until along came the son of an Italian immigrant who promised to turn Birmingham into an example of how a modern city should be. On the whole he didn't do too bad a job of it except he had a predilection for putting pedestrians underground via a system of stairs ramps and tunnels which in turn made the motor car king. Though in recent year sanity has reared it head and the pedestrian has begun to be brought back to road level.

Dartmouth Circus..jpg
 
Phil said:
The buildings lay in a derelict state for many years until along came the son of an Italian immigrant who promised to turn Birmingham into an example of how a modern city should be. On the whole he didn't do too bad a job of it except he had a predilection for putting pedestrians underground via a system of stairs ramps and tunnels which in turn made the motor car king. Though in recent year sanity has reared it head and the pedestrian has begun to be brought back to road level.
Click to expand...

Herbert Manzoni was that son of an Italian immigrant.

Herbert Manzoni - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org

Phil, maybe you can explain your comment "On the whole he didn't do too bad a job of it"

As far as I can see he knocked down many fine buildings (Josiah Mason College for one), put huge roads through the centre of Birmingham (the A38!), and left successive councils with the huge job of trying to "put right" almost everything that he did (and they are still trying).

The old Inner Ring Road (concrete collar) strangled the city and stopped its growth as nobody wanted to build anything just outside the Inner Ring Road. It also encouraged cars to come right in to the city centre. The council have spent the last 30 years trying to reduce the negative effects of that concrete collar.

They are trying to "push" the city centre out to the old "Outer Ring Road". This started with the Westside area in the 1980s along Broad Street (ICC, NIA, Brindley Place etc), continued with Eastside in the last 10 years, and next it will be Southside and Digbeth, on the site of the old Wholesale Market (this will take 15 years) . So it is a 60 year project (started in the 1980s).

But we are still left with many "dead" areas in the city where huge soulless roads and roundabouts on stilts dominate the area.

I did not move to Birmingham till 1980 so I am prepared to accept he may have done some good, do you have examples?

p.s. you only have to look at the plans for the city centre of Birmingham (see below) to realise there was a slight madness in his plans. Who in their right mind would consider widening Colmore Row and knocking down some of the lovely building along it. Luckily it never happened, but much on this map did.

The used to be a computer game called "Sim City" where you could design your own city, and it seems these guys were playing "Sim city" with Birmingham's city centre.
CUWkVDQXIAE5PfF.jpg
 
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I love your "diplomatic" description, Phil, couldn't have put it better myself! Ha ha! :)

Alas, what is done is done, and it would be very difficult to start again, though it seems that is what they have been trying to do ever since 1961 without much success.

Maurice :(
 
Guilbert

As I said on the whole he didn't do too bad a job, he did modernise the city and give the country it's first city under cover centre shopping centre, and he did get rid of some of the worst slums, and give us the basis of a comprehensive improved road system. Nobody is saying he didn't make some terrible errors that are being rectified now.
 
Its quite easy in hindsight to criticize what has gone before and lament a lost past that never was. Herbert Manzoni’s plans for the city were of its time and in general widely accepted as a way of modernising an industrialised city that had suffered terrible bombing during WWII
 
Phil said:
Two views of Six Ways Erdington, one looking across the traffic island from the top of Gravelly Hill North and the other looking across it from Summer Road.

View attachment 134645View attachment 134646
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Phil said:
Two views of Six Ways Erdington, one looking across the traffic island from the top of Gravelly Hill North and the other looking across it from Summer Road.

View attachment 134645View attachment 134646
Click to expand...
The second photo brought back some happy memories, I used to work in the offices( painted white ) way back in the 60’s ,it was Part of the Rank and leisure services ,thanks for the memories
Regards Jeannie
 
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