Pier Head Station

This post, along with the others under the sign of "Dock Roads", is a shared research resource, principally for Philip and Hangfeng who are working on an idea that explores the situation of the Bund in Shanghai and the situation of the Pier Head in Liverpool.

This archive image from the 1950's is a revelation! The sense that this area around the Pier Head was part of a thriving metropolis, a place where pedestrians and traffic were part of the same context, that the street was occupied!

There is a great website http://www.photobydjnorton.com devoted to the photos of D J Norton put together by one of his sons, that includes photos of the Overhead Railway in Liverpool. The website explains:

• Dennis John Norton - was my father. Born in Birmingham in 1930, he suffered ill health throughout his life. He died from an asthma attack at the age of 35 in Ledbury, Herefordshire where my family had moved hoping that a country location may help alleviate the symptoms of his illness. He left my mother, brother (aged 4) and me still 9 weeks away from being born.
• Although I never met him I developed many interests that were similar to his - electronics, astronomy and photography. It was this latter interest that he left most evidence of. We have several hundred black and white photo's from the 1950's and 1960's that he took and developed himself. We also have several hundred full colour slides, also from the 1950's and 1960's.
• Many of the photographs are railway related - another great interest of his. The ones that captured my imagination were of Birmingham prior to and during the development of the inner ring road. It was these that inspired me to take these fascinating images out of their dusty old boxes and make them available to the world.
• This is a project that will take time to complete. My aim is to expand the site as and when time allows. Eventually I hope it will stand as a suitable memorial to my father and a life that was cut tragically short.
• If you take copies of the images here for you own use, a small donation to Asthma UK would be very much appreciated. Also, an acknowledgement of their source would help spread his name as an important photographer of his day.

This kind of historical knowledge is what makes what Foucault calls 'subjugated knowledges' available for us to research. There is this photo taken in 1960 that shows how things changed on the Dock Road so quickly in the 1950's and 60's. The website explains:

• In 1960 my parents went to the Isle of Man for a holiday. My father obviously had to re-visit the site of Pier Head station to see what was left. The simple answer - nothing. After it's closure in 1956, the railway remained in place for a year or so with the hope that someone would take it over and get it running again. The investment never happened and the system was dismantled starting in September 1957. The demolition was completed by January 1959.

These are photos of the Overhead Railway that D J Norton took in 1955, the year before closure and demolition took place. It is another world, but one that overlaps with my memories of 1950's Britain.





Posted by Philip Courtenay

Cities where they do things first

This post, along with the others under the sign of "Dock Roads", is a shared research resource, principally for Philip and Hangfeng who are working on an idea that explores the situation of the Bund in Shanghai and the situation of the Pier Head in Liverpool.

In the 19th century people from all over the world would make visits to cities like Liverpool and Manchester, to see for themselves what the future might hold. Liverpool and Manchester were linked by the very first passenger railway.

• The Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR) was the world's first inter-city passenger railway in which all the trains were timetabled and were hauled for most of the distance solely by steam locomotives. The line opened on 15 September 1830 and ran between the cities of Liverpool and Manchester in North West England in the United Kingdom.[1] The L&MR was primarily built to provide faster transport of raw materials and finished goods between the Port of Liverpool and mills in Manchester and surrounding towns. Wikipedia

The Liverpool Overhead Railway was the world's first electric overhead railway.

• The Liverpool Overhead Railway was the world's first electrically-operated overhead railway. It was located close to the River Mersey in Liverpool, England. It opened in 1893 and closed in 1956.
• As early as 1852 the railway had been suggested. Although it wasn't until much later that the railway came into existence. Engineers Sir Douglas Fox & James Henry Greathead were comissioned to design the railway. They chose electric traction, due to the possibility of sparks igniting the cargoes in close proximity of the railway. The works commenced in 1889 & were completed in January 1893.
• Known locally as the Dockers' Umbrella, the Liverpool Overhead Railway was opened on February 4, 1893 by the Marquis of Salisbury. The railway ran from Alexandra Dock (LOR) to Herculaneum Dock, a distance of six miles. It used standard gauge track and there were 11 intermediate stations along the line. It was an electric railway from the start, and was the first electrically powered overhead railway in the world.
• The line was later extended northwards to Seaforth Sands on 30 April 1894. A further extension southwards from Herculaneum Dock to Dingle was opened on 21 December 1896. Dingle was the line's only underground station and was located on Park Road; the station is now used as a garage. The extension was achieved by spanning the Cheshire Lines Committee's extensive goods yard at Brunswick with a 200 ft lattice, girder bridge & then boring a half mile tunnel through the sandstone dock, under what are known locally as the 'Bread Streets'. The tunnel portal is one of the few surviving signs of the railway's existence.
• Finally, a northward extension was connected to the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway's North Mersey Branch on 2 July 1905. The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway ran some of its own specially-built vehicles on the line, and these were especially used during race meetings at Aintree Racecourse.
• The railway was carried mainly on iron viaducts, with a corrugated iron decking, on which the tracks were laid. As such, it was vulnerable to corrosion - especially as the steam-operated Docks Railway operated beneath some sections of the line. During surveys it was discovered that expensive repairs would be necessary to ensure the line's long term survival, at a cost of £2 million. The Liverpool Overhead Railway Company could not afford such costs and looked to both Liverpool City Council & the Mersey Docks and Harbour Board for financial assistance. This was to no avail.
• The Liverpool Overhead Railway Company had no option but to go into voluntary liquidation. Accordingly, and despite considerable protest, the line was closed on the evening of 30 December 1956. The final trains each left either end of the line, marking the closure with a loud bang as they passed each other. Both trains were full to capacity with wellwishers and employees of the company.
• The service was replaced by a bus service (route number 1) operated by Liverpool Corporation, which could not compete with its predecessor's much faster service, due to congestion along the Dock Road. The public continued to campaign for the railway to reopen, albeit in vain.
• Demolition of the structure commenced in September 1957, with the whole structure being dismantled by the following year. The bridges were removed for scrap, leaving very little trace of the railway, save for a small number of upright columns found in the walls at Wapping and the tunnel portal at Dingle.
  

These days people travel to Shanghai to get a taste of the future! Shanghai has a brand new Maglev, but how long will it last? These videos were taken by e-space lab member Jonathan Kearney in July 2007 while taking the Maglev from Pu Dong airport to the Shanghai city centre area where the Expo 2010 is taking shape:





Posted by Philip Courtenay

The dockers' umbrella

This post, along with the others under the sign of "Dock Roads", is a shared research resource, principally for Philip and Hangfeng who are working on an idea that explores the situation of the Bund in Shanghai and the situation of the Pier Head in Liverpool.

The "dockers' umbrella" was the the worlds first overhead electric railway. Running from Dingle, south of the city centre, along the Dock Road to the northern docks, the elevated track provided dockers with shelter from the rain, as they waited for work. Dockers were employed to unload and load cargo from vessels moored in the docks as and when they arrived. It was hard and dangerous work, but dependent on the traffic into the port, and so employers preferred a "casualized" system, paying dockers wages for particular unloading and loading work, not a weekly wage!



These videos from You Tube show views of the docks from the railway.





Posted by Philip Courtenay

Looking for work

This post, along with the others under the sign of "Dock Roads", is a shared research resource, principally for Philip and Hangfeng who are working on an idea that explores the situation of the Bund in Shanghai and the situation of the Pier Head in Liverpool.

I found this archival photo of the Dock Road, apparently it was taken in 1961. Looking for work in an empty city? What was it like? It was raining that day, and the dockers' umbrella was long gone!

Posted by Philip Courtenay

Aerial views of Liverpool's northern docks 2007

This post, along with the others under the sign of "Dock Roads", is a shared research resource, principally for Philip and Hangfeng who are working on an idea that explores the situation of the Bund in Shanghai and the situation of the Pier Head in Liverpool.

Lynn Pilling, a colleague of e-space lab co-founder Peter Hatton in the arts organization TEA, has allowed us to use some of her photos for TEA research, to document the northern docks and the Dock Road area during the summer of 2007.



Posted by Philip Courtenay

View of northern docks from a train October 1992

This post, along with the others under the sign of "Dock Roads", is a shared research resource, principally for Philip and Hangfeng who are working on an idea that explores the situation of the Bund in Shanghai and the situation of the Pier Head in Liverpool.

This video's source is Super 8 film, so it is silent. It shows the northern docks area of Liverpool from a suburban train travelling towards Bootle back in October 1992. It shows three large chimneys of the then demolished power station on the docks. As a landmark these three chimneys survived the German bombing of Liverpool in WWII but could not survive the city re-generation plans of the 1990's. In Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, urban regeneration has led to the demolition of both factories and a power station. The footprints of these old industrial sites have become public parks, public spaces or commercial offices, but the old chimneys have been preserved, restored and maintained, as monuments to past realities and fading memories.



Posted by Philip Courtenay

Back into the red! That was quick!

I found this! And I thought of William Blake and his Laocoön engraving/manifesto.


"Where any view of money exists, art cannot be carried on, but war only." William Blake

He says everything!

The whole business of man (human beings) is the arts and all things common! No secrecy in art!

Posted by Philip Courtenay

Another river, another city, another memory!

Sean, thanks for the addition to the international conversations about birds post (15 Nov. 2008). It connects quite personally as a living memory. Battersea Power Station loomed over where I lived as a very young child, and I remember the building of the fourth chimney. The last time I visited the power station it was the dramatic location of a huge show of work by contemporary Chinese artists.

The grand scale of the site drowned out the best work and foregrounded the spectacular, and on terms that were governed by the "local" art politics of London based interests. I saw the work, as did many others, but it was the usual chicken run past artworks, so brilliantly masterminded by the Tate Modern model of how best to experience art as a cultural tourist. Tate Modern is also housed in an old Power Station, where the old turbine hall becomes the venue for works that have to compete with its enormous scale. Faced with the big we can feel small. Feeling small means we will feel a pressure to stay as we are. We stay the same and things stay the same.

The architect of Battersea Power Station was Sir Giles Gilbert Scott, a noted architect and industrial designer, famous for the design of the red telephone box, of Liverpool Anglican Cathedral and of the other London power station mentioned above, Bankside, which now houses the Tate Modern art gallery. Both power stations are on the River Thames that flows through London, another sister city to Shanghai.

Posted by Philip Courtenay with B&W photo of a black swan on the River Thames in London (1973) by Sean Halligan

Dock roads in Liverpool and Shanghai

This post, along with the others under the sign of "Dock Roads", is a shared research resource, principally for Philip and Hangfeng who are working on an idea that explores the situation of the Bund in Shanghai and the situation of the Pier Head in Liverpool.

Views from Broadway Mansions in the summer of 1965 looking towards the Bund. Horse and carts were used to move goods around the docks in Liverpool, as in this picture at the Pier Head, up until as late as the fifties. Living memories?

We are going to do a bit of excavation of the present and exploring the past, and in particular looking at Shanghai's Bund, and Dongdaming Lu running through the "North Bund", and juxtaposing findings with Liverpool's Pier Head and Dock Road.

Pink is the new red

Our friend Meng Ni Beh, who has translated English to Chinese for us on our website, curated a show in the Triangle Gallery at Chelsea College of Art & Design that was called PINK is the new Red (March 11-19 2008). The exhibition was an opportunity to see a spectrum of art practices being conducted by some staff and students from the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, celebrating the exchange programme with Chelsea College of Art & Design that, together, we had instigated.

Shades of pink are everywhere. We are using shocking pink in our banner, a colour inspired by the latest Shanghai Biennale catalogue. This kind of pink makes an appearance in the Made Up banner and catalogue cover designs too! Pink is the colour for the upcoming Bluecoat show called Next Up, that includes work by Jay.

Perhaps we need to move on, or back to red? The Translocalmotion catalogue has some images that contrast Shanghai's past with the present. You can see the overviews of the city, the old racetrack and present day People's Square. The old Horse Racing Clubhouse is now the Shanghai Art Museum, the main home of the last six Shanghai Biennales.

Looking at past and present is what we will be doing on the blog for a while, and with special focus on the Bund and Dongdaming Lu in Shanghai and the Dock Road and Pier Head in Liverpool. This research will be part of the programme of support for a project that Philip and Hangfeng are working on at the moment.

Posted by Philip Courtenay