MANGLE STREET, NORTHERN QUARTER 7.04AM Back Piccadilly forms the city centre boundary to this current project. It’s a curious street, like a redundant spine, that more or less runs the length of the Northern Quarter. Around its liason with Oldham Street people perform a peculiar dance as they avoid bumping into one another on the narrow pavement, and vans and lorries block it whilst grumpy men unload goods into the bars, supermarkets and shops that face out onto Piccadilly. Away […]
JERSEY STREET, ANCOATS 6.41AM The top of Jersey Street is separated from the creators and new residents of the regenerated Ancoats by a small, humped bridge. In front of the estate, that looked towards the flourishing city centre skyline, had been placed a Free School. The grey, fenced in Portakabins caused it to look more like a holding centre for refugees than a place of learning for young children. A man in a hi-vis jacket was patrolling the gate as […]
RUSTICA, TIB STREET, 7.03AM The day before had started chaotically, as my alarm didn’t go off, and a non-committal drizzle had doused the weekend warmth in streets that now seemed disjointed. An old fella in a tweed flat cap, walking slowly and unsteadily with a stick, had stood in the middle of the road and loudly denounced a driver going in the wrong direction up a one way street. There’d also been a small altercation with a young lad in […]
LITTLE LEVER STREET, 6.50 AM The buildings clustered around Little Lever Street allow very little of the dawn light to touch their walls. The street lamps stay on longer here, straining to fill shadowed doorways with some kind of light, and it feels as if the ghosts of old Mancunia blend with the scent of rubbish that drifts along back streets not yet deemed worthy by the gentrifiers of the Northern Quarter. Above could be seen the Travelodge on Great […]
LITTLE LEVER STREET 6.51AM A SLOW MOMENT FILM The area around Little Lever Street, just off Great Ancoats Street is still awaiting gentrification. The buildings are struggling to remain and the small, dark streets are pock marked by rubbish. At dawn most of us are in that state of sleep that allows dreams to fill our minds, and in these half lit streets can sense the ghosts of old Mancunia as the area awaits its rescue. This film contains flickering. […]
VICTORIA STATION, MANCHESTER 6.47AM Two nights before there had been the Autumn Equinox, when summer ends and the days tip towards winter. The moon had shone like a torch and was perfectly round, as if it had been drawn by an eager to please schoolboy with a compass. This morning, partly covered by cloud, it had the deflated look of an old leather football that had just been clogged towards touch by an uncultured centre half. Outside Victoria Station there’s […]
CORNELL STREET, ANCOATS, 6.24AM It felt, on this early Autumn morning, that there was a boldness to the birds singing their dawn songs, and the night sky was showing early pools of blue. Clouds shrugged and melted away, leaving a definite zing in the air. Soon there was a simple, unspoilt patch of sapphire colour above me and the day promised to be clear. I arrived at the bottom of the terraced streets that lie behind the Express building, an […]
PASSIONS, DUCIE STREET, 5.36AM This morning there was the musk scent of early Autumn. I breathed in deeply, and the air rasped the inside of my nose, causing my nostrils to flare. A softening mist embroiled the warm, enticing lights that illuminated streets as old as the professions that once lined them. An open doorway at the side of Passions massage parlour, open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, revealed stairs leading up to a first floor that […]
RADIUM STREET, ANCOATS 5.43AM My alarm went off at 4am, and a couple of early birds were already chirruping as I turned on the light, causing me to hurry onto the street around 20 minutes later. In the the sky above me, though, there was not even a hint of daylight. For some reason, they’d begun their songs of hope a full hour before the dawn actually arrived, and I felt deceived. I pulled up my hood against the thumping […]
STORE STREET, PICCADILLY 4.43AM When I can see that the dawn will be clear and rain free, I try to look East, where, behind Ancoats, the sky begins its daytime shift soft and golden. As this morning began there was a stillness in the area, at odds with its past and its future intentions. Here, amongst tatty trees and unruly undergrowth, living is slowly encroaching upon working as factory units begin to quietly retreat, and flats trespass further into what […]