The Northern Quarter: Greenwich Village of Manchester?
The Northern Quarter is the area to the north and east of the Market St Piccadilly axis of Manchester city centre. The name came into use from around the 80s, when the run down streets around Oldham Street and Tib Street began to develop as a bohemian district, with alternative bars, record stores and boutiques. The Northern Quarter has some striking parallels with Greenwich Village in New York, but can it measure up to its transatlantic cousin?
Oldham Street was once a major shopping street in Manchester. And then the gargantuan Arndale Centre appeared in the 1970s and Oldham St went into decline, along with the streets around it. This area was left largely untouched by the development and new construction that went on in other parts of the city centre, preserving a character of the old Manchester, much of which had been destroyed to make way for the Arndale Centre.
And then in the 80s, a new, alternative culture started to develop. At around the same time as the Hacienda came into being on the other side of the city centre, Dry 201 appeared on Oldham Street. More like something out of Berlin or Vienna, it was like nothing ever seen before in Manchester. Slowly the run down area developed into a haven for alternative youth. Afflecks Palace, a bohemian style market on 3 floors used part of the building that was once Affleck and Brown’s department store. The area came to be referred to as The Northern Quarter. A new facet of Manchester slowly took shape.
I say slowly because a quarter of a century later, it is still taking shape, and has a long way to go before it matches up to similar districts in European or North American cities. But maybe it’s better the way it is, a little grungy, a little edgy, not completely gentrified.
The Northern Quarter is one of my favourite parts of Manchester city centre, because it has preserved a sense and atmosphere of the old Manchester. But also because it’s an arty, musicky, eccentricky sort of place, and because for me it has strong echoes of transatlantic cities such as New York. Here are my highlights of the Northern Quarter, along with some personal connections.
Transatlantic echoes
Oldham Street is remarkable from an architectural point of view, with its many commercial facades dating from the late Victorian and inter-war periods. Some have been renovated, others still have crumbling brickwork and peeling paint. Just look above the shop frontages to see some amazing stone carvings and architectural details. Some of the buildings on Oldham St Manchester have striking parallels, in my opinion, with 125th street in Harlem, New York.
New York in Manchester: Alfie street film set
Part of High Street was used in 2003 for the remake of ‘Alfie’. They convincingly turned High Street into a street in the Garment District of New York. For years I had been pointing out the similarities between Manchester and New York. It’s a shame the film wasn’t successful. Who knows, this street might have become Manchester’s ‘America-town’, but it wasn’t to be and probably never will be.
Tib Street is a kind of legend in Manchester, a little street with a little name. And it has a unique mix of businesses. At the Market St end it is the famous UK high street department store Debenhams. Formerly it was Pauldens and Rylands. At the other end of Tib St are a selection of pet shops. And in the middle there are sex shops and cafe bars, as well as the Filipino snack bar Cebu City. Tib St is narrow and pokey. Just about the opposite to glamorous King Street. There are cafe bars that double as places to eat and drink by day, and places to go out at night. It’s said an underground river flows along Tib Street.
Stephenson Square is a few steps from Oldham Street. I can remember a time when Stephenson Square for me exuded a profoundly depressing character. Used mainly by buses and trolleybuses serving the east of Manchester, it lacked the grandeur and elegance of Albert or St Peters or St Ann’s Square. In my opinion, Stephenson Square has the potential to become a French or Italian style piazza. Stephenson Square is set to change.
More American parallels: The building that houses Hatters hostel is very similar to one on Broadway New York. And the former commercial buildings behind Debenhams recall buildings in New York with their stepped back facades. Unfortunately in the reconstructed apartment development, the stepped back shape has not been retained.
Manchester view from Tib St car park with The Birchin
Little Lever Street is another narrow little street, which leads off from Stephenson Square. In 10a Little Lever St, the original Virtual Manchester website was born around 1994, founded by Nigel Stewart and the late Andy Blunt. Next door to that place is the basement gallery Phillips Contemporary Art, which regularly puts on some remarkable exhibitions of local artists and photographers. Very close, on Lever St, is the Manchester Police Museum.
Intriguing arty rain-sodden
The Northern Quarter arts project has made this district one of the most interesting to walk around. At every street corner and even set into buildings are all kinds of sculptures, pictures, even poems. Some are partially hidden. Others appear from time to time and there are many I still haven’t spotted. The Richard Goodall Gallery is a leading private gallery. In fact there are now two, the original and the new one on High Street which looks just as plush and minimalist as any in New York. The Craft Centre is another arts-related place to visit.
The Northern Quarter has an intriguing mix of restaurants, some of them upmarket, others definitely not. Among my favourites are the tiny Asian restaurants with their 3-curry special offers. There is quite a choice of places to eat and drink, I’m not going to name or recommend them here, just go and explore!
Just footsteps apart from each other are the Manchester Buddhist Centre and the city centre mosque. To my knowledge, there are not and never have been any churches in what is now the Northern Quarter. By the way, the eastern boundary is probably along the line of Swan St and Great Ancoats St, though it could be said to include the far side of those streets. Artzu gallery is another interesting venue next to the remarkable Daily Express building - not strictly speaking the Northern Quarter, but still a part of it.
The northern end of the Northern Quarter is delineated by Shude Hill, now site of the transport interchange. Just opposite is Rambos tattoo parlour, which seems to sum up another side of the Northern Quarter, along with the bookshops selling ‘adult’ materials.
On the southern side, I’m not where the Northern Quarter ends, but heading along Dale St it seems to extend towards Piccadilly Station, taking in those wonderful warehouse buildings featured in ‘Life on Mars’. Another pokey little street Back Piccadilly. I often walk along there so I don’t have to look at Piccadilly Gardens. On Dale Street in the former Foo Foos Palace was the basement Ranch Club, once a notable punk rock venue in Manchester.
The more I write, the more I realise just how much character and uniqueness there is in the Northern Quarter. I really do see striking parallels with Greenwich Village and West 4th St New York, but while New York’s Village is exuberant and full of confidence, Manchester’s Northern Quarter seems a little run-down and rain-sodden in a quintessentially traditional Mancunian sort of way.
Maybe I prefer it that way.
This article offers a taster to the Northern Quarter - I have only sampled what’s on offer there. Best to go there and have a wander around. The content presented here will feature in my future guide book to Manchester.
Selected links:
Manchester Evening News report about plans for Stephenson Square Nov 2006