Captivating glimpses of Manchester's 1980s captured in vintage snapshots

   

In the early 1980s, several traditional and local industries were declining and many of them were closed under the radical economic restructuring often known as Thatcherism. “In the decade from 1979, when Mrs Thatcher applied ‘monetarism’,” said one commentator. “94 percent of all job losses occurred north of a line drawn from the Wash to the Severn. Of the manufacturing jobs lost, 70 percent were from the North.” The city, however, was also developed rapidly in the 1980s. On November 5, 1980, Manchester became a nuclear-free city. It was a progressive gesture but largely symbolic.

There were many physical changes in the eighties as well. The city center was contracted and became a shadow of its nineteenth-century self. The abandoned Central Station was converted into the Greater Manchester Exhibition Centre (now Manchester Central) in 1982. It was also during this decade that Chinatown came into its own and the Gay Village eventually became reality instead of mere fantasy. The Museum of Science and Industry opened in 1983 and Castlefield was brought back to active life. Then came the opening of The Jewish Museum in 1984 and The Chinese Arts Centre in 1986. In order to renovate former warehouse areas and canal basins, The Central Manchester Development Corporation was created in 1988.
Take a look back at the city in the 1980s through 26 fascinating vintage snapshots from the Visual Resources Collection at Manchester Metropolitan University Special Collections and Manchester Archives Plus:

Piccadilly Gardens, 1980

 

Central Station, 1980

 

Hollings Building, 1980

 

St Mary's Gate, 1980

 

View along St Mary's Gate towards Market Street, around 1980

Oxford Street Cinemas, 1982

 

Rotter's night club, formerly the Gaumont cinema on Oxford Street, 1982

 

Piccadilly Gardens, Manchester, 1983

 

The Wellington Inn and Sinclair's Oyster Bar in Shambles Square, 1983

 

Shambles Square, 1983

 

St Ann's Square, 1984

 

Tib Street, 1984

 

Corner of Hilton Street, 1984

 

Demo, Albert Square, 1984

 

The Grosvenor Picture Palace building at All Saints, 1985

 

St Peter's Square Gardens, 1985

 

Manchester Arndale Centre, 1985

 

Manchester Arndale Centre, 1985

 

Manchester Arndale Centre, 1985

 

Demolition of flats on the HulmeMoss Side border, 1985

 

Piccadilly Gardens, 1986

 

Santa on Manchester Town Hall, 1986

 

Chinatown, 1987

 

The former Picture House cinema on Oxford Street, 1987

 

Rotter's night club, formerly the Gaumont cinema on Oxford Street, 1987

 

Market Street and the Arndale Centre, 1989