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.

Moorhens on Barmy Drain

I post this because it's the first time I've managed to get a moorhen in focus in years of trying.  These birds are fairly common, not particularly shy and hardly quick moving; don't quite know what my problem was ... So, anyway, this little group were on Barmston Drain and I'm pretty sure this is a second brood of the year as another much bigger juvenile was hanging around.

Wellington Street Bridge

This little swing bridge allows you to nip across the entrance to the marina without having to go over the dock gates. For some reason, probably economic, it is often closed (that is open for boats but closed for foot soldiers, you understand) but I guess with the thousands attending the Humber Street Sesh cacophothon on Saturday it was deemed safer to allows folk to cross this way. (But this photo shows I was wrong to think so; this event seals off public streets and charges people to exercise the freedom to pass along the highway. It is in plain words highway robbery! with noise!)
The bridge would have had rail tracks on it originally as part of the Humber Dock rail system. 

There, now you've seen it from both sides, aren't you lucky!.

A different point of view

... sometimes I take a great notion
to jump in the river and drown.

So yes, it's that man again, the statue known for no discernible reason, as Voyage. This thing always puts that old Leadbelly song in my head for some reason but that's just me I guess.

Ice Cream Days

Final stages

Back in February I posted about the construction, in the old dry dock, of a stage for open air performances. Well here it is in all its wooden glory ready for its debut on Saturday with the annual Humber Street Sesh. Looks pretty good to this pilgrim through this barren land. Another welcome development is the opening of a small footbridge (from which the above shot was taken) allowing public access to the stage and buildings. The stage is built from larch so it should weather down to a silvery grey in due time complementing the grey bricks hopefully.

And finally for the truly OCD amongst you; the ancient graffiti Daze is still there though somewhat faded by the passing years, well, aren't we all?

Getting there

I haven't been in this area for a while so it was a pleasant surprise to find that the second set of buildings in this complex by the old dry dock are very nearly completed. If I remember the plans rightly there's another set of buildings to come along the road. It's all looking rather nice I think. Here's how it looked last time.