Either way it is a wonderful picture of Albert Square before the space in front of the Town Hall was made traffic free and the public lavatories just at the bottom of the picture closed and built over.
Now I am not one of those secret tunnel enthusiasts but I would love to know if the gents and ladies were stripped of all of their fittings and filled in or just caped, ready to be reused at some later stage.
It is one of those pictures which is almost the Albert Square we know today but not quite. The memorial and surrounding buildings have yet to have a century and a bit of soot and grime cleaned from their walls, and the road behind the statutes still has its island bus stops and shelter. They will go in the 1970s along with the buildings to the left of the picture
But there is that is still familiar. Cross Street to the north of the square is pretty much unchanged as are the buildings directly facing us.
I do have to admit I am little curious about the white building in the right hand corner which today is monumental slab with a Starbucks outlet on the ground floor.
Having said all that it does look old fashioned, which I guess it partly because of the quality and colour of the photograph and the odd looking cars and buses.
And here I have to admit the unpalatable. I am old enough to recognise the scene from the darkened buildings to the layout of the square and above all the red buses. These belonged to the corporation of Manchester but equally there were green and blue buses operated by neighbouring local authorities who crossed in and out of the city.
Picture; Albert Square from the collection of Rita Bishop, courtesy of David Bishop
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