Park Lane/Jamaica Street c1930
The same area 1995
Another dramatic comparison between the Liverpool of the 1930s and today (or, more accurately, the 1990s). Annoyingly, the plane’s wing is obscuring Brick Street where Pat O’Mara (author of The Autobiography of a Liverpool Slummy) lived and where I have my offices but, directly below the wing tip you can make out St Vincent’s primary school, with children playing in the yard (see post of May 27). Everywhere is industry, from the long sheds of Park Lane Goods Station to the countless warehouses. The large block underneath the plane wing is now the Contemporary Urban Centre – but all around are equally impressive warehouses (all demolished). Great Georges Square is just above the wing – and a couple of streets along is the Church of St Michael (bombed in the War). In the centre (to the left of The Contemporary Urban Centre) is a rather pitiful playground for the hundreds of children who lived in the immediate locality.
Compare the density of the 1930s photograph with the one I took in 1995. Liverpool’s population had peaked in the 1931 Census at 846,00. By 1991, it had shrunk to 470,000 (over a much larger physical area). Back in the 1930s, that wedge of streets around St Michael’s church (Pitt Street, Kent Street, Upper Frederick Street) was a concentrated slum of overcrowded terraces and courts – many were demolished in the following years to make way for tenements. Park Lane was a major thoroughfare, lined with shops and businesses – a very different city.
