Talk:Canal Street (Manchester)

Anal Treet

Does anyone ever call it this, as opposed to Anal Street?????? Lmno 03:07, 25 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Go there some time. The street sign is repreatedly being vandalised to Anal Treet. Kinitawowi 12:17, July 31, 2005 (UTC)

From the article:

In Late 2004, AXM Magazine decided to open it's bar 'AXM bar' in the heart of Canal Street, providing an 'up market' and more sophisticated experience in Manchester's gay village by providing excellent cocktails and an un-rivalled level of service standards. This ever popular venue has marked a change in direction for Manchester's gay village seeing many bars follow suit such as Prague V's recent refurbishment to View and Velvet's new swanky cocktail bar.

I think this sounds a bit biased. Sounds to me like marketing hype. And I have been in AXM bar.

I agree with you, its a bit too biased. I live near Canal St., and been AXM and its not that good, if you ask me it's one of the less busiest bars they have.Nathgregory 11:15, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

--Ste b 14:03, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Ste b, so I've updated the article. I have removed the commercial references to AXM and Essential (retained Manto info due to historic significance). I've updated the list of bars and added websites where I could find them. I've also removed the references to Manto being the bar in QAF, since several bars were used. It now reads a little bit more like and encyclopedia and less like an advertisement.

1indiekid 23:53, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

"The role of Canal Street in the life of the Gay Community and the Gay Individual" needs cleanup

I found this section really hard to read, with some very complex phrase structure that seems to be incorrect. --Phelan 16:10, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

Pride?

Do you think we should have a pride section? It is a yearly event, much could be added. ? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Nathgregory (talk • contribs) 11:17, 6 December 2006 (UTC).

Speculation

from the article: "The continuing existence of a 'Gay Community' is also a questionable prospect. As society and Canal Street have become more diverse and pluralistic, there is little which may bind any such community together besides one of sexuality. This increased openness about sex in general, a more transient population and disaffection which some hold either over Canal Street or the 'Queer Life' in general, may ultimately lead to the end of the place of Queer as Folk fame."

These musings are speculation (about the future no less) and someone's personal opinion only and have no place here. Will remove unlessthere are objectionsVauxhall1964 17:00, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I'd be happy for this to be done Etrigan 21:59, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

References

This article is completely devoid of references and is full of unsupported POV statements such as "This was viewed as something of a revolution as Manto had large glass windows" and "In the late 1990s it was felt by many that Canal Street was becoming too 'mainstream'" These may or may not be true, but without references they are totally unverifiable and, as such, are just someone's point of view. As the article is said to be about the "largest gay village in Europe" it deserves better. I'm sure there are lot's of newspaper reports, magazine articles and good quality on-line references that could be used to improve it. Richerman (talk) 15:46, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

Anal Street, Treet or whatever

I must say I find it a bit strange that the person who decided to revert the removal of the Anal Street image (twice) accuses others of edit warring and says we should have a reasoned discussion on the talk page but doesn't start one. Some months ago I cleaned up the article and removed a picture showing the "comically" vandalised sign as I thought it irrelevant, however, someone has seen fit to put a similar picture in the article. I still can't see any relevance or notability for it. I've seen lots of vandalised street signs with with the words changed on them - do you think they should all go into wikipedia? What makes this one more notable than any of the others? Yes, I know the sign is regularly changed and some of the locals sometimes call it Anal Street but is that verifiable - has anyone seen a reference for it? Richerman (talk) 14:38, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

Starting off with an ad hominem attack really isn't useful here. Cheap of you, frankly. The fact that someone - not me - put a different image back shows that there's at least a 2:2: opinion split on this - which in itself is probably a good reason to halt edits on the subject until consensus can be achieved. This one is notable because is has become a nickname for the street amongst the gay community, and an explanation of the etymology of that is relevant to the article. I can find a few references to it being named so online and can certainly make a stab at making that section a lot better. Will take me a few days as I'm short of block-time. Meanwhile, could you, say, work on the longstanding WP:POV and WP:WEASEL violations? That'd be a good use of both of our times and produce a more encyclopediac article as a whole. Etrigan (talk) 16:18, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

First good source for anal treet: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/theyre-only-here-for-the-queers-721341.html Etrigan (talk) 16:22, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

But the imaage doesn't match what the source says. The source talks about a road sign "defaced" to read "anal treet". That's not what this is a picture of. --Malleus Fatuorum 16:33, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

For God's sake, to paraphrase another editor of my acquaintance - if you think that's an attack you need to get out more! I was merely pointing out that if you want a sensible discussion it's a good idea to start it off with a reasoned argument rather than a short comment in an edit summary. I would dearly love to see this article improved, and if you look back over the history you will see that I've already done quite a bit of work on it removing a lot of the POV rubbish and adding citations where I could. The state I found the article in originally was a disgrace for something that was supposed to be about "the most most successful gay village in Europe." There is nothing about Anal Street in the article so there is no reason for the image to be there because it doen't illustrate anything. If you can find something significant to put in the text about the nickname, and the image serves to illustrate the point, that's fine, but at the moment it's just a bit of mindless graffiti - and Manchester has more than enough of that. Richerman (talk) 21:29, 13 January 2009 (UTC)

I think a longer explanation in the caption would be helpful; for a first time viewer it looks like an unencyclopedic insult. I'm not saying it isn't encyclopedic, but I do think it needs a description. --Josh Atkins ^{(talk - contribs)} 21:30, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Major re-edit

Many months late, I've done the major re-edit that I promised, all the way down from the subject-object mismatch in the very first sentence. I'm sure there will be a few people unhappy with it, and I'm happy to work on it further but here's the principles of what I've done.

• Adherence to the article subject: This article is about Canal Street itself, not Manchester Gay Village, which would best be the subject of another article. Because of this I've removed a lot of things to do with subjects other than Canal Street, its history and establishments on it and the reason for their existence.
• Removal or flagging of clearly incorrect items, Original Research or POV. A lot's been sliced out because of this. Canal St doesn't have cafes or shops, nor are many people there tourists (some are!)
• Re-ordered the history section - to give it a sense of linear time.
• In Popular Culture sections are deprecated - they were called Trivia sections, and they still add nothing encyclopediac to the article. I've incorporated them into the article body and removed the section.
• Remaining uncited stated facts - Can someone back up that Canal St was a lesbian hangout before it went gay?

Things I'm unhappy about still

There are two places where chunks of text have been put in from other sources. They're cited, but not identified as quotes. It would make for a better article if these were re-written, but I don't have the original reference material to hand in the case of the book in order to do this well. I might have a go soon though. Etrigan (talk) 00:00, 3 April 2009 (UTC)

Since 2008-09 Manchester gay village redirects here. --Franz (Fg68at) de:Talk 04:26, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Canal Street as a collective name

I just put some info on about the history of the "Canal Street area" and it was deleted (in Good Faith) with this comment "Bloom Street isn't Canal Street. Another one for a Mcr Gay Village page". All fully understood but surely Canal Street is not just one street but a collective description for several, including bloom St and the other partts of the village. If there is not Gay Village page lets make one!--Mapmark (talk) 16:37, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

On you go and create it - I think it's definitely needed and is certainly notable. There's a fair amount of text that can be scavenged from previous versions of this article too, to start it off. Etrigan (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Anal Street

Despite the discussion above, there's still nothing in the text that gives a reason for the Anal Street image being there. Isn't it time it was removed? Also was any of the text removed of use to the proposed Manchester Gay Village page - if so could it be copied onto this page? And in answer to the question above - no, Canal Street is one street in the gay village - it's not a collective name for anything. Richerman (talk) 16:55, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Heh. That's just a challenge for me to re-word the article to make cited reference to it, isn't it? grins Etrigan (talk) 21:06, 22 April 2009 (UTC)

Nothing like a challenge to get the creative juices flowing :) Richerman (talk) 10:50, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

See Also

I don't see why the "see also" section was removed. The links referred to other streets around the country that are centres of a gay area in the same way as Canal Street is. What's the problem with that? Richerman (talk) 12:53, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

As I read the ways of doing things, "See Also" sections should be used where it's useful or important to read on to another article in order to gain a broader understanding of the initial article. This isn't the case here, and there's a perfectly proper alternative - the use of a category. Categories are best used for grouping of articles unrelated except by one aspect of their content - and I'd suggest that's precisely the case here. That's why I reverted - if the other articles are in the "Gay Villages in the United Kingdom" category too then there is also no need for further duplication of linkage. Etrigan (talk) 19:21, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Just checked, and they're all listed in the above-mentioned category. Etrigan (talk) 21:16, 29 April 2009 (UTC)

Hmm, it's a bit of a moot point but I see where you're coming from. I think strictly speaking you're probably correct, but I think the casual reader might find the "see also" section useful but perhaps not notice the categories. Richerman (talk) 09:32, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

They'd only find it useful if gay villages was the subject they were looking for. A "See Also" section could also justifiably include other streets in Manchester, or streets beside canals, or streets with bars, or 1001 other related articles added, making a huge mess and negating any usefulness. Rather than just picking one (by what criteria?) I'd strongly argue for none, and sensible use of categories.Etrigan (talk) 12:00, 30 April 2009 (UTC)

The 1880 incident

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/aug/07/gayrights.communities

"This kind of surveillance was nothing new in the area. In 1880, a notorious raid on a nearby temperance hall halted "disgraceful proceedings" at which almost 50 men, half of them dressed as women, gathered "for the purpose of inciting one another to commit abominable offences".

In fact, when you go back to original reports in The Guardian on Sep 26 and Sep 27 1880 it turns out that the bar was actually in "Hulme place, York Street, Chester Road".

You can see back issues of The Guardian online if you have a Manchester Libraries card.

A look at an old map from 1884 shows that the junction of York Street and Chester Road on the 1884 map was where the big roundabout is in Hulme - the A56 and A57(M). Can that really be said to be "nearby" Canal Street? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.152.25.214 (talk) 22:05, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

New LGBT Historic England project

Hi all

I work for Historic England and we currently have an LGBT project called 'Pride of Place' where we're trying to map all the LGBT-significant places in England (see http://mapme.com/prideofplace) - feel free to add some things!

kind regards, Dominic Martin

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Gay Village?

Just to be clear, this isn't an official title? Maikel (talk) 08:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Homophobic attack?

Was the manslaughter of Simon Brass homophobic?

Wasn’t it motivated by the thugs not being able to find a phone? AverroesII (talk) 14:26, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I.e. a robbery related attack rather than homophobic? AverroesII (talk) 17:15, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Changes to make this page about the gay village, rather than the street

I'm considering reforming this page to make it about Manchester's gay village as a whole, rather than the specific street of Canal Street. The vast majority of the information is already about the gay village as a whole, not Canal Street itself. At the time of writing only four sentences are not about its relationship to the gay community. I also think it's reasonable to assume that most people who search for 'Canal Street (Manchester)' are looking to read an article about Manchester's gay village, and not history of the specific street.

Furthermore, Canal Street is a metonym for the gay village as a whole - and the vast majority of the time when people use the term "Canal Street" they aren't referring to the specific street. I also don't think there's enough info on the street itself to warrant its own page if this becomes a page about the gay village.

My proposal is that this page gets retitled to "Manchester's gay village" and its current name becomes a redirect. I'm happy to listen to other people's opinions, but this seems like the most appropriate solution. Mspence835 (talk) 20:31, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

On second thoughts, I'm going to propose splitting this article. The vast majority of the data will go an article on the gay village, whilst a rump remains about the street itself. An about section at the top of each article will make it clear which is which. Mspence835 (talk) 21:02, 3 October 2024 (UTC)

Splitting proposal

As stated in the section above I'm proposing splitting most of the information in this article into a separate page called Manchester's gay village, with a rump piece of information on the street itself remaining here. Mspence835 (talk) 21:10, 3 October 2024 (UTC)