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They Were Caught In Our Old Street Pics...

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oldMohawk said:
On Saturday 2nd November 1940 a crowd stood at the junction of Birchfield Rd and Mansfield Rd looking at craters caused by high explosive bombs dropped during an air-raid the previous night. The two people I like in the pic is the shopkeeper and a customer in front of the apparently undamaged shop. The hairdressing shop on the corner was not so lucky.
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image from Library of Birmingham
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Looking at the Birmingham papers very little is said as could be expected, but it looks like all enemy action is underplayed. There were a few cases of looting.
 
A Birmingham newspaper vendor in the 1980s. I took this photo but can't exactly remember where. The message at the back of his booth reads "No change without a paper". This was in the years before mobile phones so perhaps we are near a central railway station where people might need to make phone-calls. Dave.
 

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I think your 'telephone' suggestion could right on the money (pun intended), Dave. Some folks might just want to 'spend a penny' :D, another possibility is some form of food/drink dispensing machine close by.
 
A Sparks said:
Interesting - Bevis Marks is the home of the Jewish Sephardi community in Spitalfields, London and has 'the oldest and most splendid Synagogue in Great Britain'
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Sephardi communities were usually of a Mediterranean/North African origin whereas those from Eastern Europe would, most likely, have had their own synagogues following Ashkenzim practices.
 
Thank Alan,
I actually live in the London area that has the largest community of Orthodox Jews in Europe!
They are mainly Haredi (the men with the ringlets) who, I believe originate in East Europe, but there are some Sephardi as well.
 
farmerdave said:
A Birmingham newspaper vendor in the 1980s. I took this photo but can't exactly remember where. The message at the back of his booth reads "No change without a paper". This was in the years before mobile phones so perhaps we are near a central railway station where people might need to make phone-calls. Dave.
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A guess. This could be in Colmore Row opposite Snow Hill Station. The woman behind could be walking into Great Western Arcade.
 
farmerdave said:
A Birmingham newspaper vendor in the 1980s. I took this photo but can't exactly remember where. The message at the back of his booth reads "No change without a paper". This was in the years before mobile phones so perhaps we are near a central railway station where people might need to make phone-calls. Dave.
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Could it be when the buses introduced the no change machines
 
In 1907 they got the horse and trap out for an afternoon ride along Hamstead Rd and look as if they are about to make a right turn into Villa Rd. If they were there today, as in the second pic, they would recognise that wall and gate on the left, the half timbered building which still has a flag pole, but the clock has gone. The church is still there.
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Taking the kids out for a run somewhere in Handsworth Perry Barr. The 'ghost' lady on the right is only partially caught in the pic and look at the hats ... :)
HandworthPerryBarr.JPG
 
An interesting group of lads near 42 Northwood Street. They are similarly attired in jackets and waistcoats, almost uniform like. They stand outside a house with a shuttered bay window but next door has a collection of plants and a small model of a house on their bay window. Perhaps that lady in a dark dress ran some sort of business.
NorthwoodSt.jpg
 
Definitely looks like a business oldMohawk, seem to be pyramids of tins in the windows? I wonder if she lived upstairs and the top of the bay was her garden. The plants look a little like tomatoes maybe.
 
oldMohawk said:
An interesting group of lads near 42 Northwood Street. They are similarly attired in jackets and waistcoats, almost uniform like. They stand outside a house with a shuttered bay window but next door has a collection of plants and a small model of a house on their bay window. Perhaps that lady in a dark dress ran some sort of business.
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Oldmowhawk et al
Is this the Northwood Street that still exists on the edge of the Jewellry Quarter? Perhaps someone has a Kelly's circa 1900 that will indicate if Mrs Fagin and her friend/s did own a shop, if so she certainly seemed to need a large number of delivery boys, but have you noticed that they are all similarly dressed and with apparently shiny shoes. It is a super picture and now of course begs a mystery, but there are four ladies in the picture, one cart and lads who all appear to be of the same age judging from their heights.....just think of a 2016 tabloid headline for It!!!

Bob
 
Hi mow
just been looking at the photo of you call mrs fagin with those lads well i have just ben looking at another picture
in another book and the pic i was looking at was around the 178O,s and its a very busy street scene not far from northwood street
its a completely different houses and its right by warstone lane clock and its people all over in the street
ladies and gents and kids going around as normal
and what i have seen the kids out fits are the normal dress code of that era they are wearing the same type of clothing
and there hats and shoes those clothes are that period must be
and looking at the house with the shutters to me that i would expect to see in that period do not forget
there was very few curtains around in those days they had wooden window shutters but saying that
looking at the state of the shutters with all that vanderlized chalking all over them
i would say the house is empty void , or some one died in there and its vacant
and if you look closely to the next door house it as ladies dresses in her window and pots and bric bac on her
bay windows and seeing her with that wicker basket out side the house tells me, and it tells me she is a street trader
selling clothes and possible flowers down at the very old street market in the oriniginal bull ring
be cause she would hve had to buy that wicker basket from down the market it they was used by flower sellers
and rag and bone people but all those years back in the 1900 and right up until the fifty thats what you would see trapping up and down o the markets rag aley included i am trying to think of the name of the makers they have been there for centurys
by the mid fiftys they stopped making them and brought in the hawkers carts
i have also seen a few pics of the very early market days with ladies dressed in those smart dresses on there stall selling there wares
best wishes Alan,,, Astonian.,,,,,,,,
 
Assuming that the label date was put on by the photographer, then the photograph must be after 1897, as between 1897 and 1899 the numbering of the street changed from consecutive to odd one side, even the other, as on the description. From 1897 till about 1904 no 4 was Charles Carter , Wardrobe dealer (secondhand clothes dealer), but from 1908-1921 (and probably after) nos 40,42 & 44 were The Carpathian Manufacturing co, tray manufacturers. As the photo specified these three numbers i think it is reasonable to assume that that is the firm in question
 
On reflection I don't think it is Mrs Fagin in the pic, she would not want her workers easily identifiable with similar caps and suits. She must be Mrs Miggins who supplies excellent home cooked meat pies to workers in the surrounding small factories. They know it is her pies being delivered because they recognise the lads, but her company vehicle could do with an upgrade ... :)
On a serious note, for anyone who wants to see it, I have put the full street pic in the Old Streets thread post#4831
 
smashing photo phil..nice to see almost everything is still there now including the funny shaped wall on the left
 
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A Sparks said:
I like the last line!
I wonder what 'Government work' they meant.
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Good question! 1922 Grace Guide gives Carpathian Mfctr Co as producing nickel plated trays, but here in 1917 they have turned their hand to munitions! The Guide says they were at 34/44 Northwood Street and above shows GE for 34 now, and being BDG Mfctr Ltd.
 
At the rear of Edmund Street another street of elderly building ran, I believe this was possible Cornwall Street. Near the junction with Ludgate Hill was a small cafe run, in the early 1950's by a lady known as Dolly Hunt. The property was situate near the rear access of Philip Harris & Co. whose frontage was at 144 - 146 Edmund Street. I related my connection with the company in the Ludgate Hill thread. Their origins were in Digbeth in the early 19th. century, then to the Bull Ring area before Edmund Street and 61 - 64 Ludgate Hill. They apparently moved away from Birmingham to Staffordshire and Somerset in the 1960's.
I am sure there is some information particularly about the old Cornwall Street before the wholesale rebuilding of much of parts of the city centre.
 
A family group stand in this image at 34-38 Northwood Street c1900. They live next door to the Carpathian Manufacturing Co seen on the right of the view and the photographer has chalked the address on a shutter.
NorthwoodCarpath(71).jpg
from the Shoothill Collection
 
No idea why that bloke near the bus stop is standing like that but he is caught in a pic of a tram in Witton Lane outside the Aston Hotel in July 1953 just before it would be driven for the last time into the Witton Tram depot. He looks like a BCT official and perhaps they wouldn't let him have a drive of the tram ...:)
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