Kingston Square

I was going to use these for the 'light & shade' theme at the start of the month but used something else instead. So here's this little offering; better late than never. Kingston Square is a pleasant enough place to while away a bit of time; at least it was before the demolition and building started just recently.

Lexington Avenue is no more

On this cleared site sometime in the late fifties or sixties was built the Mecca Ballroom known rather romantically as the Locarno, a place for stately ballroom dancing. I'm told the Kinks once played there and looked totally out of place. As times moved on it became Tiffany's, a nightclub, a place to go after the pubs had closed to 'dance' (in reality to keep on drinking). I recall nightclubs of the seventies with their glitter balls and extra loud disco noise and groups of young women standing or jiffling around their handbags on the dance floor. Ye gods! What dreadful places! As the seventies slid ecstatically into the Thatcher years Tiffany's became Lexington Avenue (LA's to the cognoscenti), and I'm afraid by then I was too old to be allowed in (I think I've been too old for most things in this life but we pass along on that). Reports of drug taking (No, really?), drunkenness (who ever would have thought?) and antisocial behaviour (well those were the days) drifted past my eyes in those days but I didn't care and I guess neither did anyone else. The place used to be absolutely heaving on weekends ... and then well, autre temps as they say. It closed several years ago and stood empty as is the well known style in this town. Now with la culture approaching and an alleged shortage of hotel rooms in steps Hilton Inc. to pop in a 167 bed hotel. They'd better get a move on.

On Sunday, go to church ...

... I mean shopping, of course. Here's St Stephen's shopping mall, named after a nearby and long demolished church, a veritable cathedral of retail. Since the 1994 Sunday Trading Act  finally put the end to a thousand or more years of terminal weekend boredom this country has become almost civilised, with the Lord's Day Observance people free to observe the rest of us merrily going to Hell, sorry there I go again, I mean the shops.

Welcome to Dull

The above dull and uninspiring ticket office and waiting room at Paragon Station is to be removed to allow an even more dull and uninspiring set of buildings including shops and, wait for it, wait for it, ... a coffee bar! Yes, if permission is granted, all this blandness will be Hull's to enjoy by November in time for the you know what next year. I understand that the Edwardian wooden cafeteria below is a Grade 2 listed building (as is just about the whole station) but that won't stop anyone bolting on a "glass box" to it with the aim of making a fast buck out of 'culture' would it?

Here's a vision of the future brazenly stolen from the council's planning portal. It's just truly stunning and breathtaking isn't it? What a fantastic first and lasting impression of the mediocrity of Hull it will give visitors over the coming years. Where else can one see such sights and imbibe the thrilling ambience of commerce and coffee whilst rushing for the train or bus out of this place? "Just standing in the paradise that was Paragon Station concourse was enough for me" as no-one is ever likely to say ...

Black

The weekend in black and white is here.

Weekend reflections are here.

Soft, strong and unbearably long ...

OK I expect the odd advertisement for the C of C but this one in Hull station put me in mind of a giant toilet roll. Is it sending a subtle message about the dire nature of next year's 'events'?

Un-English Light

Having spent an hour in Cottingham church the other day I have a bagful of photos so I may as well use one or two for the City Daily Photo theme of 'shadow and highlight'. The stained glass in this church is mostly from a Belgian artist J B Capronnier a fact which someone, Nikolaus Pevsner no less, complained about saying he felt like he was in a French church and "It is all totally un-English; and how much truer to the medium English glass is!"  Mr Pevsner's claim to Englishness was somewhat strained being the a son of a Russian-Jew brought up in Leipzig but we'll let it pass, we're all communautaire these days, well at least until the end of the month. 

The church is kept almost completely unlit, so there's plenty of shadow and a good chance of tripping over a pew until your eyes adjust.

Photo by Margot K Juby