The Birmingham Bull Ring feature I compiled last week seems to have stirred quite a bit of interest, both here and on Facebook. I realise it’s a long way from Brownhills, but for people of a certain age, hopping on the 156 and taking the hour-long trip into Birmingham was a rarified and exciting experience when you were more used to the confines of Brownhills High Street. I have really strong, fond memories of the old Birmingham pictured here, and also of the sense of failure that engendered it in the late eighties and early nineties. There will be more on this subject to come, as I’m trying to collect images from the period I recall so fondly. Please click on the images to visit the original photographers sites – there’s a whole treasury of stuff there from some great photographers.
Telly Salvalas does a promo for Brum – as he did for many cities. This never, ever gets old. Enjoy.
I think I remember this - but it could be a false memory. I think this was where the central island of shops was in the original Pallisades, above New Street Station. Nice threads on the gent, to boot. Picture spotted in the wonderful Flcikr photo stream of FrMark.
Now, this one has opened up a who can of railway anorak worms. This is the old Snow Hill Station, which I'd always been told was a remarkable place, but never looked into. Apparently, when disused in the seventies, it was used a a pay car park. These cars are parked on the old platforms. What the very hell? Take a look at FrMark's wonderful Flickr photo stream for more.
From the brilliant and essential Birmingham, it’s not shit blog, a fantastic piece about a lost shortcut in Birmingham, recently closed.
Requiem for a piss-stained short cut by Danny Smith
Danny Smith has written some brilliant stuff about Birmingham on the site and Jon Bounds, the creator and curator of the blog is fast approaching national treasure status. Please check them out.
So close.... and yet so far away. I remember this spot, must have passed through it loads of times - probably clutching my latest vinyl purchase from Virgin or Frank Wild Records - but can't place it. Like so much of the old Bull Ring, you knew how to get to bits of it, but you were so dislocated from the rest of the city by roads and subways that you were never sure exactly where you were. Taken form the Flickr photosteam of bretwilde.
In the above eighties TV advert, look out for the dreadful fashion, and actor Stan Stennett (who was in Crossroads at the time) on the escalator in Central Court. Cheesy, or what?
More memories. Gino's was a series of Italian restaurants - not sure if they were a national chain or just a Birmingham thing. Must have had one of my first 'proper' meals out here. I think there was this one in the upper maze of the Bull Ring, one like a cafe that sold ice cream on Centre Court and another on the corner of, I think, Smallbrook Quensway at Horsefair (where the Pagoda is now) - I'm talking late seventies until mid eighties. Please help me here - anyone remember them or the details? What became of them? I know I had some kind of pasta; it was mind bendingly exotic to me then. Another good one from the Flickr photo stream of FrMark.
Matineau Place still exists and came in for a serious turd-polish at the same time as the old Bull Ring was demolished. I always found the concrete beams and hard, brutal architecture confining and depressing. It has never seemed to fare well commercially, even after the revamp. Spotted in FrMark's Flickr photo stream.