I may not have arrived in the city until 1969, but there is plenty in these two pictures which I remember.
Well, I say that, but it being my first year in Manchester, there was much to explore, and I guess it will have been early 1970, when I took to wander down Peter Street.
By then, Central Railway Station had been closed for months, but much else in the photograph was still there and still in business.
I did see a series of concerts in the Free Trade Hall, looked into the ornate YMCA, and may even have caught a film in the Theatre Royal.
It would be another year or so before I ventured off down the side roads into that warren of streets and was rewarded by a clutch of old and wonderful pubs, and by degree onto Deansgate.
Now Mancunians my ponder on my lack of discovery, but like most students I was more familiar with the Oxford Road corridor which every day whisked me from Withington into Piccadilly.
But then, unlike my University friends, I was based at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street, and when faced with a spare few hours between lectures, rather than visit the Library I took to the city streets.
Looking back, it was a better choice, for it led by degree to forays into what we now call the Northern Quarter, and Spinneyfields, and down to the Castlefield Basin.
All were places waiting for something to happen, and pretty much unclear that anything would.
So, a trip along the Rochdale Canal took you through the heart of the commercial and industrial part of the city, along what was then a neglected waterway, while the unpromising saunter to the end of Corporation Street offered up Angel Meadows.
But I rather think I have strayed from Peter Street, and Central Railway Station.
Location; Peter Street
Picture looking out across the station and surrounding streets, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY
By then, Central Railway Station had been closed for months, but much else in the photograph was still there and still in business.
I did see a series of concerts in the Free Trade Hall, looked into the ornate YMCA, and may even have caught a film in the Theatre Royal.
It would be another year or so before I ventured off down the side roads into that warren of streets and was rewarded by a clutch of old and wonderful pubs, and by degree onto Deansgate.
But then, unlike my University friends, I was based at the College of Knowledge on Aytoun Street, and when faced with a spare few hours between lectures, rather than visit the Library I took to the city streets.
Looking back, it was a better choice, for it led by degree to forays into what we now call the Northern Quarter, and Spinneyfields, and down to the Castlefield Basin.
So, a trip along the Rochdale Canal took you through the heart of the commercial and industrial part of the city, along what was then a neglected waterway, while the unpromising saunter to the end of Corporation Street offered up Angel Meadows.
But I rather think I have strayed from Peter Street, and Central Railway Station.
Location; Peter Street
Picture looking out across the station and surrounding streets, 1963, Courtesy of Manchester Archives+ Town Hall Photographers' Collection, https://www.flickr.com/photos/manchesterarchiveplus/albums/72157684413651581?fbclid=IwAR35NR9v6lzJfkiSsHgHdQyL2CCuQUHuCuVr8xnd403q534MNgY5g1nAZfY
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