Broadgate

Interesting how there is a small elongated traffic island extending Broadgate beyond the buildings, like they are saying, this is Broadgate, not High Street, not Smithford Street.

I like the 'Typhoo Tea for Indigestion' ad on the tram!

Rob, I think this is one of yours posted a while back on FB. However, with a slight zoom I think it's the best shot of that naff deco reface of Boots. The picture is the aftermath of the IRA bomb in 1939. The entrance almost looks like a modern day store. Looking at it again - do you think the pic in post #859 was taken from the roof of Boots?

Almost certainly, Neil

I think that there is a face on view of the Boots but you're right Neil, it was naff and the forerunner of modern shop fronts.

Yes, there is a face-on one Helen but it's not very clear. They keep turning up though, don't they!

Probably one for the festive period but I like this Cov Digital one. Nice cars / love the Broadgate House logo and a good capture of the subway.

I well remember the shop names, but how many are still trading today? Probably none. The subway in the foreground has long gone as well!

I love that shiny new Morris. In the late 60's we had a couple of them but never new. The Traveller's previous owner had put a souped up engine in it and mushrooms grew on the felt stuff around the windows and had to be harvested over the growing season. Those were the days when you could take your car to the man down the street who could make anything work again after a trip to the scrap yard for the parts.

I don't suppose Wilson's is there anymore, either. Stylo, as well as the other shoe shops along that strip, made a good few pounds out of me over a few years.

None of those shops exist now, no. I've mentioned before a section of that subway is still open (though not to the public) and used by the newsagents under the clock for storage.

Helen/all - Alan Denyer (the chap who is currently running the LTB), Cliff B and I have been discussing this intriguing find from Cliff and need some assistance. It shows a tram going up into Broadgate with Timothy Whites clearly visible on the left (so, as we've confirmed on here already, must be post opening in September 1939) - however we don't recognise the building on the right? By that date the new Pru building should be visible and the building does not match any of the pre-clearance frontages. The upper window looks old to me. Cliff says it's dated August 1940. Any ideas anyone?!

Well spotted. It is the Prudential building but a section sandwiched between two jettied, more eye catching bits. I'm not sure that I've ever seen the ground floor, so yes, it looks unfamiliar. Correction - considering the white post, it might be the other non jettied section further south but, it's not obvious which of the two sections it is. Anne's great artist's sketch helps but doesn't show the shop fronts well enough to pin point.

So frustrating. That building was there such a tantalising short time. I have just looked through the Broadgate posts and there are one or two glimpses of where it could be, where Helen says. Neil's post 478 of the building after it was bombed could show the upper floor windows. Just not one picture taken after it was finished. Perhaps Rob could move the tram out of the way.

Zooming in to one of Rob's images I get the picture below. The blue dot shows at least one top opening window out of a set of five. The red dot shows the makings of a doorway and the yellow dot is a white post with a part downwards sloping sign on the post. I think we have a match? The shop front may have still been unfinished in the tram photo. The building isn't as defined black and white like the rest of the building.