One thing I did notice a few weeks ago whilst having breakfast at the hotel that was near Piccadilly station.
I was near a window that looked out at a main exit from the train station. Probably sat talking to business colleagues for approximately 2 hours.
I was astonished at the constant stream of people over that time entering the city centre. It never stopped!
I thought to myself, “where are they all going?”
The city is thriving! 
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A number of years ago, that approach to Piccadilly station and the surrounding area, including the Piccadilly Gardens and some of the Hotels in the vicinity, were totally no-go areas, particularly at night. Drugs and prostitutes abound.
I was at Salford University from '86 to '90, then working for ICL West Gorton '90 to '99, where I also returned to Salford University Business School for postgraduate studies. I lived in Higher Broughton, Salford both in the ‘Student Village’ and then up on the Cliff (I think it was called that), also a shared house in Prestwich, before buying a house in Prestwich.
Was only thinking about my time there, last week, as my neice, as a newly qualified Doctor, has moved to Manchester to complete during placements at Wythenshawe Hospital. She has moved into one of the new towers of apartments at the end of Deansgate. All very smart and redeveloped area, from the pictures. She will be able to get the Metro to the Hospital, as it now serves the Airport. “That wasn’t there in my day!”
I was there when the Metro opened in '92, but it was a service up to Bury on the old railway lines, and into Victoria station, and later out to Altrincham.
Great, to see that it has florished and a very different place to last time I was properly there in early '00s.
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Interesting.
One thing very obvious spending time there over the last 5 years, there is some serious investment ££££££ going on.
It’s still a building site in other areas. The investment doesn’t appear to have slowed down.
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‘‘Twas indeed.
There remain multiple no go areas but it’s a mixed bag. One might feel deeply uncomfortable walking back Piccadilly to the Northern Quarter as it’s pretty dark and uncomfortably quiet. It’s not generally dangerous though. On the other hand pick the wrong time of day to visit the Arndale or walk the far end of Oldham Street and things become deeply uncomfortable very quickly.
I lived in Salford 6 for 18 months and then Salford 3. Loved it, especially the latter. My work patch was Higher Broughton/Kersal and Lower Broughton, now rebadged as Irwell Riverside.
The Cliff was the location of both the old United training ground and the excellent Star Inn. Well known folk den.
The best bit of Manchester is not strictly Manchester but Salford Quayswith pleasant housing a great theatre and museum and eating places.
I don’t like the trams as they are very noisy making a whining noise and very slow.
As a long time Salford resident and having worked there for 33 years that amuses/bewilders me.
Can’t disagree about the theatre, although they’ve a lot to learn on accessibility.
Ditto the museum, which is a great theory, has a brilliant bookshop but is an awful experience for so many groups of people. Imagine having a learning disability and then being plunged into near darkness and loud noise every 30 minutes. Imagine having a sensory impairment or a physical disability and trying to get to an accessible loo in the middle of that. Very pleased to see they’ve taken an absolute battering on accessibility recently and might finally be forced the hard way to listen.
Restaurants I don’t get at all. Wagamama, Pizza Express et al. What else? A Starbucks. The very dead Lowry outlet. The market area is an improvement but compared to the likes of Mackie Mare it’s a poor poor offering.
Salford Quays itself is cold, often windy, lacks many of the facilities required to live in an area and is a weird mix of media luvvies who clearly despise it and very under the radar criminal types.
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Ok we only go to,the Lowry occasionally for concerts but find the centre round Piccadilly Gardens depressing and all concrete.
Perhaps coming from. green city like Sheffield I’m biased.
But I’ve covered Manchester for work for 25+ years so been loads of time over the years.
The area round Man City ground is heartless. Much prefer it when Bellevue zoo was there
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Oh Manchester, so much to answer for…
Can’t disagree with that. It’s almost like the City Council begged multiple private companies to build a monument to their own stupidity.
On the other hand the Lowry has nothing to do with Manchester at all given that it’s very much located in an entirely different city despite its own marketing.
I adore Sheffield and indeed have just come off a FaceTime with the offspring who is studying Music Performance (Guitar) there and who is prepping for his two bands to play Tramlines Fringe next weekend. Whilst Sheffield is green Manchester is actually just as green but manages it far far worse.
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I confess to having imbibed a number of ales in that establishment during my uni days in the early ‘70s.
Interesting ceiling adornments, IIRC.
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Lower Broughton, do you mean “Spike Island”?
It was a pretty tough area in late 80’s, when I was an undergraduate ‘86 to ‘90 - great times for the music though. And into the early 90’s the whole ‘Madchester’ scene while I was on a Graduate Engineer program and “wet behind the ears”.
I look at how people are behaving for the Oasis gigs, and have to think “I was there, lived it”
And I don’t need to relive it!! 
Have re hit all much of The Smiths catalogue many times over the years. And remember driving past Strangeways every morning on my way to work.
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Thanks again Mike, you are a true mine of information!
I looked up J. Schofield tours - I must book one of those when I next travel North (of the Watford Gap).
Also, within the J. Schofield tours webpages I found an Instagram video of him describing The Butterfly Bridge in front of The Barns Wallace Building and Reynolds building, which is visible in the first of the rooftop photos had posted in FRs ‘Show yourself when you were 20’ thread.
Here is the link to that photo posting.
I see at least one person on this thread has owned up to going into The Tommy Ducks - RESPECT 
I could tell more about my experience of entering that establishment and it involved more than what was on the ceiling!
Anyway, I think our ‘crew’ much preferred the Mark Addy.
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Heck, I was very young (18!) and impressionable in those days……
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No particular love of Manchester (as a Yorkie)) but I’m old. I know it quite well. It’s a city for the young. Northern Quarter for me is scruffy but for young revellers it’s edgy and over flowing with everything they want. My favourite restaurant (cafe) can be found in a back alley, Soap Street but it’s not for the faint hearted. The Arndale remains a carbuncle (the bit with the bridge). Would only add the town planners have failed Mancunions. Every new building seems to bear no relation to the last new building. Worst of all, the waterfront is shocking. A huge missed opportunity. Needs a weir to control river height which would allow the river front to be used for leisure/bars etc. South Manchester is really the new London. Pricey, full of bars and restaurants. This has led to the growth of Stockport. Underbanks being the place to be.
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I served my apprenticeship in Manchester and studied at the college of building, I too confess to spending too many lunches in Tommy Ducks but the Mark Addy was just across the river from the college so that got most of my wages 
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Well you did ask…
I most certainly do. I worked on Mocha Parade and lived round the corner just off Silk Street next to the now demolished Hyde Park Corner. Had some genuinely lovely clients around Spike Island and the Poets but in the end they used the regular flooding to wipe it all out.
Saw The Smiths in Leeds Uni. in the Riley Smith and at Maxwell Hall at the uni. in Salford.
Salford has attempted gentrification but it’s not really worked. Lower Broughton/Irwell Riverside remains as bleak and tough now as it did then.
The Higher Broughton team I joined in the early 90s had an excellent reputation but, bar the two female friends I made for life on my first day there, I really didn’t fit. Used to let my mates sit on the windowsill in my shared office and have crafty fags out the window. Worked weil until the large tree outside the window went up in flames.
The LB team had a shocking reputation having originally been based in one of the Mocha Parade towers and had the unfortunate incident of an older gent found dead in the flat above the team who had been dead for three years. MEN had a field day with that.
That team were mad as hatters but I had the time of my life. We watched as Mocha Parade Post Office was held up repeatedly until the day it was held up by a bloke with a banana in a Tesco bag. Hid in the social work office when a distressed parent with a shotgun came into our waiting area. Watched in equal awe when a female social worker roundly derided by others talked him down from taking his own life with that same shotgun whilst under a bridge on the Irwell one Christmas Eve.
Watched in awe as the lad in a balaclava took an 8 pound sledgehammer to a brand new bike attached with 3 locks to low level bollards and chains and made it his own in 45 seconds much to the amusing annoyance of the work placement student who thought a new bike in Salford 3 was a great idea.
Heading daily from my initial home in Salford 6 up to Higher Broughton I look back in awe at my sheer stupidity in crossing the roundabout at the end of the 602 on my bicycle and laugh at the lesson I quickly learned from a Community Development Worker that you had to take a different route to work each day else the lads in the tower blocks would take you and your bike down with bricks and paving slabs.
Still haven’t lived down cycling down Regent Road post Ordsall riots, getting to work on Mocha Parade and asking if anyone knew why I’d smelled and tasted burning. Carpet World had burned down and I’d cycled past oblivious.
Even by the late 90s things were rough. Colleague was a victim of a local game whereby kids in cars would slow down next to a cyclist and then pull them under the car. Lovely man who dressed like the teacher he eventually became. Looked like Catweasek, did Morris Dancing, built and played medieval musical instruments. He was in hospital for weeks. Persuaded not to quit he returned to work with his head shaved and in full combat gear. Garnered a lot of female interest as he appeared to have gone full commando in every sense.
Watched the students in Linen Court get attacked with a machete and warned that they needed to leave before the next morning else they’d be burned out. Watched our next door neighbour hanging out of the drivers side window as the car went in circles round our courtyard and he tried to stop his car from being nicked.
Let my uncle and wife park their car with us whilst they went in to see Clapton at the then MEN Arena. Told him it was fine to walk in. As they got to the end of Adelphi Street the gun shots started and there was a funny whizzy noise as a large CRT flew down to the ground from the 12th floor of one of the tower blocks. Landed about 2 feet away from my aunt. They never saw Clapton again.
Weeks after we moved out a female student died after being stabbed by a bloke in a toga with a sword who she didn’t hear coming because she was wearing headphones in the street. I have never worn headphones outside since.
Working and living in Salford 3 gave me the absolute time of my life.
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Mrs. H. did Tommy Ducks but I was more of a Mark Addy person back when it did Ploughmen’s which were the stuff of legend.
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Jonathan Schofield walking tours are the stuff of legend. Pick your timings carefully. He may have been in the pub before you start but that’s definitely where you’re finishing.
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Gotta be This And That.
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Meh. South Manchester is horrid. Ancoats and Levy surely?