The Northern Quarter

“This is the elegant hub of the aspirant club of creatives ordained to fly far, but from where I’m sat it’s less Stella McCartney than fat blokes on Stella Artois”
N/4 by rev porl

As a teenager making my initial forays into the big town, I would always pass by Oldham street and Tib Street for a trip around Affecks Palace and a gander in a couple of the decent record shops along the way. I would marvel at the proliferation of pet shops and tramps, then wander off back to the comfort of the chain stores. When I reached drinking age, and the pet shops turned into sex shops one by one, I discovered that there were also a couple of good pubs around the area, and a couple of the first gigs I saw were at Band on the Wall. But there was never a name for it…

Then, according to the conspiracy theorists, the council hired the IRA to bomb the Corn Exchange, to get the freaks out and the rents up, and for a fast track to some European urban regeneration money. (Mancunian Civic Pride Rule 1:What the Scousers get first, we get more of eventually.) The famed independent music, fashion and arts scene which had spawned Factory and it’s ilk was given the pocket now known as the Northern Quarter, an area full of properties that, short of a second bomb, couldn’t be leased to any high street chains due to the squalid state of most of the buildings, and many of the inhabitants.

The area was rebranded as a centre for bohemian chic as if giving it a name ending in “quarter” would turn it into Soho or Greenwich Village overnight, but for the most part, until recently it was still the same motley selection of record shops and rough pubs that had always been there. You can’t polish a turd.

Part of the problem was that the area had long been home to just about every voluntary agency in the city centre, and home to their clients as well. Just as you can’t imagine Gianni Versace kicking used syringes from the step of Via Manoze with a loafered toe on his way into his office, this mixture of the creative bourgeois and the hopelessly dysfunctional poor didn’t gel as well in practice as in theory, though it did give the area certain seedy charm. There were moments of grim humour though, the Hearing Voices Network had its helpline offices on Oldham Street for while, I remember peering though the window and seeing the call centre volunteers chatting away earnestly, although the phones were never connected.

But as if to prove Alistair Crowley right, that you can will something into existence if you say it’s name often enough for long enough, the area is at last starting to live up to the hype and develop a character of it’s own.

The first thing you notice as being different from most of Manchester are the people, specifically the men, who are in their own way as unique as those on Canal street, but much uglier. These are the fellows with the perfect quarter inch beards, dressed head to ankle in Bench clothes (if Bench make underpants, these guy are wearing them), topped off with ridiculous OTT old school trainers. These are 45 year olds dressed as 15 year olds, like sufferers of a slow form of Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome. The Northern Quarter is the only place in town to see the over 40’s skateboarding and wearing big shorts and Vans. Dignity, gentlemen please, act your age, not your follicle count. These blokes seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in Cord and Odd, drinking expensive foreign lagers and chewing the fat, or maybe the Phat. They are usually discussing “Nights” they put on at one bar or another. A “Night” is a bit like a disco where no one dances, or a pub with music so loud you can’t talk. Given the proliferation of these superannuated teenagers, there’s an inordinate number of “Nights” on at the various bars in the Northern quarter, as if a normal night out isn’t up to much unless it’s a “Night”. On the other hand, it’s rare to see any women over 25 out and about in the Northern Quarter bars, but maybe that’s the idea.

If you can’t stomach a “Night”, there’s a great selection of pubs around the area, a few of which seem to have come into their own over the last couple of years. Former UFC cage The King may have been spruced up and reborn as The Northern, featuring John Cooper Clarke wallpaper, expensive drinks and “Nights”, but it’s former partner in crime Gullivers is still open for ante meridiem karaoke if that’s more your bag. The Castle Hotel, a true Manchester institution for many years under the stewardship of the redoubtable Kath Smethurst, has recently been taken over and given a thorough internal renovation by new landlord (and Corrie star) Rupert Hill. If the roof drainage/urinal hybrid device has gone, I will be disappointed.

Up the road on Swan Street, the Copper Kettle is worth a visit, even if the ceiling is falling in because it’s “listed”, as is the Fringe bar nearby, and next to Band on the Wall is the best of all the Northern Quarter pubs, the Smithfield (beer festival 24-26 April). The venerable Dry Bar seems to be dying on its arse, last time I walked past it was closed by 10pm on a weekday evening, but that’s no bad thing, it spawned a hundred imitators who have collectively ruined the atmosphere of the city centre at night, so good riddance to Dry and all the stinking chrome c**ts.

If you need to line your stomach first, the Northern Quarter caters for every kind of taste and pocket. The Koffee Pot has reopened minus the mice, and the Soup Kitchen does what it says on the tin (not that I’m suggesting….). If you prefer curry, there’s the famous This and That and Aladdin’s where the dishes are passed up by disembodied hands through a trapdoor in the floor. These are both more authentic and far better value for money than anything in the Rusholme theme park. Oklahoma is both a café and a shop full of psychedelic tat, and Manchester Buddhist Centre run the vegetarian Earth Café nearby. If you’re feeling a bit more flush, there is the wonderful Sweet Mandarin Chinese restaurant opposite the craft centre, and if you’ve just won the lottery, there’s the Market Restaurant next door.

For live music, there’s a few more intimate venues around the Northern Quarter area, with Night and Day, Ruby Lounge, Mint Lounge and Roadhouse offering a variety of eclectic indie acts most nights of the week. I’d recommend filling your booze boots before you go to watch a band at any of these though, as the beer prices are steep in all of them, and they haven’t really adapted to the smoking ban yet, none of them offer a covered smoking area for the modern day pariah. The daddy of them all, Band On The Wall is due to reopen in September after a four year gap, promising a café, educational projects and improved facilities. Talking of facilities, they used to have a special balcony for smokers, I’m not sure what the new arrangements will be.

A few of the pubs have occasional live music, jam nights and poetry or comedy clubs, the Bay Horse standing out. The Frog and Bucket was one of the first comedy clubs in Manchester and is still going strong, it’s got a good atmosphere and the audiences are less belligerent than in the more famous Comedy Store, where they keep lions and sawdust backstage for particularly weak acts.

The Northern Quarter pushes itself more than anything as a retail centre with more character and individuality than the Market Street/ Deansgate chains. A few of Manchester’s long standing independents such as Piccadilly Records, Eastern Bloc and Vinyl Exchange are still in place and have been joined by some choice second hand shops such as Vintage (second hand clothes, great stock, overpowering musty smell), American Graffiti (similar, with air freshener) and Den (old furniture, Chorlton prices), and a shop full of weird purple stuff for Satanists. Afflecks palace remains as much of bustling haven for young alternative types as it did in the 80’s when a deaf punk (unfortunately one of the first people to be hit by a tram) used to stand on the stairs with a sign that said “50p please for cider”. Manchester craft centre is a hidden treasure, situated in a Victorian market building, and home to local artists, craftspeople and designers and an incongruously tranquil atmosphere.

Put all this together, and the Northern Quarter stands with a definite identity of late, love it or hate it. Yes, it’s pretentious and posy as hell, and a lot of it represents nothing more than extra money for less old rope, but as the rest of town has had the character ripped out of it by developers, it’s a pretty good use of the last bit of old Manchester left.

It would be better still if they’d kept the best of what was there before, if the fruit and veg stalls on Thomas Street were still trading, and you could still buy a monkey on Tib Street. I can’t imagine Benchman in his dotage reminiscing about when it was all Dubstep and Dildo’s around here, the way older people do about the pet shops, but it’s ok, it’s finally getting there. On the facebook page for the area someone describes it as “A gutter, yet a heaven”, which proves that you can be a student, yet a retard (maybe he’s an aca-demmick. Boom! Tsch!). It’s somewhere that will prise the students away from Oxford Road, it’s somewhere to hang out when you don’t feel like growing up, and it’s somewhere to avoid the Cheshire brawl of Deansgate on a Saturday night. It’s somewhere for a cheap curry or an expensive hat, for a “Night” or just a slightly more relaxed night. Given time it’ll hopefully consolidate the developments of the last few years, and in turn become established on the back of it’s strengths, like a dirty, litter strewn, pornographic version of “The Lanes” in Brighton. It’s showing promise; don’t call the bombers in, not yet.

This article first appeared in Chimp Magazine #3