After the Bomb

It is twenty years since the IRA detonated a bomb at the heart of Manchester City Centre. June 15th 1996 was a Saturday, and we were on Regent Road stuck in a traffic jam. We commented that there seemed to be a lot of people walking in our direction, which seemed odd. Then we noticed smoke in the distance, and then the police forced the traffic to turn around. We switched on the radio, and heard that a bomb had exploded. All very frightening. It was a miracle that no-one was killed, although a lot of people were injured.

After work today I went to an event at the Corn Exchange. Len Grant was commissioned to take photographs of the demolition work and partial reconstruction between 1997 and 1999, and for 2 years many were displayed on hoardings in the centre - but many have not been seen before. He and Jonathan Schofield took us on a trip back in time through photographs - it is so easy to forget what this part of the city centre used to look like, and the reconstruction process that followed. And they and some of the audience had some good stories to tell. Oh - and the photographs - taken with a film camera of course - were fantastic.

The event was held in the basement of the Corn Exchange, a very strange space. The blip is a photo of the Corn Exchange after the bomb. By 1996 it was no longer a wholesale market, but a kind of bazaar. It was seriously damaged by the bomb - the dome lifted off and came down again in one piece, fortunately. The event allowed the owners to use a force majeure clause in the lease, to remove all the tenants and extract more value. The vision was to go up market, so when it was renovated it became an up market shopping centre, re-branded The Triangle. That failed, so it has been redeveloped again, is now full of restaurants, and is re-branded again as .... the Corn Exchange. This looks much more successful.