Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Canal
( J. L. Hayden, 1967),
Manchester Ship Canal
(Harry Barker, ca.
1960),
Voyage along the Manchester Ship Canal
(Malcolm Wats, 1960s),
and others that the canal featured as a site primarily associated with
leisure activity.
With the opening of the Roman Catholic Metropolitan Cathedral
in 1967, both the cathedral and nearby Hope Street (which connects
the Metropolitan with the Anglican Cathedral) emerged as sites of at-
traction for filmmakers. In the city center, the area around Clayton and
Williamson Squares also became a popular leisure and recreation loca-
tion around this time due in no small part to the opening of St. John's
Precinct shopping center and its tower in 1971 (complete with a tower-
top revolving restaurant), which inaugurated the gradual transformation
of the city center district into spaces almost exclusively defined by retail
and leisure consumption.
W hile the locations described above represent places and spaces
either designed for or functioning as sites of leisure and recreation, the
type of activities that take place in these or any other locations in the
city may reflect a wide range of uses and forms of urban or social engage-
ment. For example, there are many films documenting military parades
or political demonstrations that took place in parks and other public
spaces. he ability to query the atribute data by spatial use as well as
function therefore allows consideration of the architecturally less tan-
gible dynamics of
social space:
the practices and symbolic structures of
those who inhabit the urban landscape and who invest it with meaning.
By way of illustration, figure 6.7 shows a selection of sites of festivals
and parades from the 1900s to the 1970s. As might be expected, from
the early 1900s the Pier Head and adjacent docks (Princes and Albert)
played host to a large number of parades that were captured on film.
These are mostly related to military and maritime events: the arrival of
important dignitaries and heads of state, ranks of troops descending the
floating roadway to embark on waiting ships, or crowds gathered to wave
off cruise liners carrying loved ones or emigrants bound for America
or Canada. The Pathé newsreel
The Immortal 55th
(1926), for instance,
documents a military parade and other activities linked to the Civic
Week festivities in October 1926. As well as locations on and around Pier
Head and the river, events in the film take place at St. George's Plateau
