You may have heard about the notorious raid on a drag ball at a temperance hall in Manchester in 1880? An article in The Guardian (Village People, 7 August 2004) refers to the incident, but it begins with the scene just over one hundred years later.

In 1988 “Canal Street in Manchester city centre was still a red-light district,” writes the author. Going on to describe how police officers patrolled its “dank alleys”.

“This kind of surveillance was nothing new in the area,” she continues. (more…)

In the absence of any official public forums or public meetings, we set up a group on Facebook to discuss the facts and changes people would like to see at Manchester Pride.

The questions were put in a letter and on Friday 8th April 2011 Manchester’s premier drag queen Wynnie LaFreak delivered it to Pride HQ in person. You can see what happened in this video.

Read the letter here (PDF).

LINKS

Facebook group

Message board

Wynnie LaFreak

Eight men have been arrested after a man was stabbed in Manchester’s gay village.

BBC

If you have a card for Manchester Libraries you can now access full-content archives of The Guardian and The Observer newspapers via the online 24 Hour Library service.

The newly-added archive covers The Guardian from 1821-2003 and The Observer from 1791-2003. The years from 2003 to date can be seen via the existing NewsBank service.

So, in a nutshell you can see any page from any issue and it’s free.

This is an amazing resource to have at our fingertips. Particularly as the newspaper was known as The Manchester Guardian until the late 1960′s and was based in offices on Cross Street where Boots is now. So there is a wealth of historical information about the city.

The Times is also available from 1785 to the current date and The Newsbank service provides issues of many newspapers from Britain and around the world, from the last 10-25 years. Including the Manchester Evening News, The Independent, Daily Telegraph, the Mirror…

There are many other free resources in the 24 Hour Library including reference services and the Naxos Music Library which provides 18,000 CDs to listen to.

The crime level street map for January shows that the gay village was again the worst spot in the whole city centre for violent crime (orange).

The village was the top spot for anti-social behaviour too (blue). I’ll let the map showing all crimes (grey) speak for itself…

You can see December’s stats in my post here.

Check out these and other stats on the Police.UK website.

By searching with a postcode you can check crime details for any area. The website also gives information about your local policing team and beat meetings.

The government’s new crime level street maps show that Manchester’s gay village was the worse hot-spot for violent crime in the whole city centre in the month of December.

(more…)

The origins of Manchester Pride go back to 1990 when an August Bank Holiday event was set up by several of the gay businesses. The aim being to raise money for good causes – particularly for those connected with HIV and AIDS.

So it’s quite extraordinary to hear that, this year, the opposite has happened; some of the money raised by Manchester Pride has been handed to the Village Business Association (VBA) – the body that represents businesses in and around Canal Street.

While many charities face cuts and a fall in income due to the economic situation, and some community projects get no financial support whatsoever, the VBA has received £4,000 which will go towards the cost of putting up a decorative arch at both ends of Canal Street.

This sum won’t cover the entire cost of the project. But luckily it seems Manchester City Council may have some spare money for this.

At the same time as it announces it has been left with no option but to make 2,000 job cuts, the City Council may be able to find £8,000 to put towards this project.

It’s being described as an ‘arts project’ and the arches may look something like the structure in nearby Chinatown. But some people who bought tickets for Manchester Pride or put money into a collection bucket must wonder if this is an appropriate use of the charity fund.

Also, as news is announced that no less than three venues are threatened with closure, they might wonder whether charity money is being used to try and shore up the profits of businesses in the gay village.

UPDATE (May 2012): nothing has happened so far and, possibly due to the publicity surrounding this, the Council hasn’t put forward any money for it. It’s been suggested that the VBA will hand back the cash if the arch doesn’t go ahead. We’ll then check up to find out where that £4,000 ends up.

Where do these ideas come from? Birmingham City Council has given £10,000 towards a “rhinestone-encrusted model of a rhinoceros” that will mark the entry to the city’s gay village.

When all kinds of services are being cut, spending public money on this kind of vulgar tat just brings the LGBT community into disrepute. If the businesses in Birmingham’s gay village think this will boost profits then let them pay for it.