The Ice House or what's left ...

This is all that remains of the Salvation Army Citadel on Anlaby Road, a crumbling door step. It stood next to the ill famed New York Hotel and was known universally as the Ice House because they had stored ice in it before fridges and what have you. I remember it as a Sally Army charity shop in the mid 1980's and that moved elsewhere in 1989 and demolition quickly followed but not until the obligatory arson attack. (Hull's motto: "Burn in haste, bulldoze at leisure!") The only reasonably good picture I can find of how looked is here though I'm sure there must be many others around. It was registered as a mission hall in 1883 and had seating for 2,500! (Those were the days). During WW2 it became a part-time synagogue for Hull's Old Hebrew Congregation as their place had been bombed as was the custom in those days. The new place is much smaller but the road on which it stands was renamed Ice House Road just to keep the memory going.

Keep on smiling

Also while I was away the Council finally took a big deep breath and blew down the New York hotel, well maybe a JCB was involved, but anyway it's gone leaving this impressive pile of bricks and dozens of homeless pigeons. The building had only been empty for fifteen years and in a state of terminal decay for nigh on eight so this is really quick stuff from HCC, verging on the impetuous. (maybe I should go away more often) The bill for demolition is thought to be well over £250,000 which the Council thinks it will get back from the owners ... I think I know who is smiling after all this.

Going, going, almost gone

The recent fire at the New York Hotel uncovered weaknesses in the neighbouring Albert Hall on Midland Street. The Council, for once not taking its time, issued notices to fix it by the end of the month or it will be demolished. Well as you can see the facade, which was dropping bit and bobs on the pavement below, has gone and the rest will no doubt soon follow at the tax payers expense while the Council chase up the owners for the money ....

Stasis

Well I came to see if was still here and indeed the former Alfred Percy's York Commercial and Temperance Hotel better known as the New York nightclub on Anlaby Road is indeed standing upright and showing all the signs of decay you might expect from a building that no-one wants but no-one can afford to knock down. Four years ago I posted about this and how it was due to make way for a brand new hotel and it's nearly a year since I posted that the Council were demanding it be made good or else. At the end of last month it was reported in the local rag that the Council "could be forced to intervene" after finding that the owners had been leading them a merry dance (who'd have thought it?) and might actually, you know, go ahead and demolish the place and send the owners the bill (well good luck with that!). The Council suffers from a lack of money and political will to take on the owners of places like this so a kind of septic stasis has set in.

This derelict building, which opened in 1880 and has been through two world wars with attendant air raids and numerous economic ups and downs, could still be here in a couple of years time to welcome visitors as they alight from Paragon Station for the delights of the year of the City of Culture. That or a pile of rubble and some homeless pigeons. 

The weekend in black and white is here.

Big apple

Around the corner from the Albert Hall stands yet another piece of dereliction and decay. I show you all the best bits of Hull. This is the New York. It was a thriving dive of a place until, as I recall, the early 1990s. It is now as you see it broken and unloved.
I mentioned when I posted about the Albert Hall that there were rumours of redevelopment. My researches have found that, indeed, planning permission for a brand new hotel to be called the Park was granted in 2008.  This would involve demolishing this whole block; I can't honestly say that I'll miss this particular building.