“…a brilliant example of how people, culture and changing attitudes can completely redefine an urban neighbourhood.”
There can be few streets in Manchester that have undergone a more remarkable social, cultural and physical transformation than Canal Street.
The top photo - kindly provided by Steve Welsh - is from 1983, and looks north from Sackville Street across the Rochdale Canal.
Notably if you look carefully at the photo you can see, amongst the vacant buildings, the sign for the Playboy Club at 10 Canal Street. The venue opened in 1973 but had closed by the time this photograph was taken.
The ‘now’ picture was taken September 2026 and shows the incredible change in the past four decades. Canal Street has become one of Manchester’s most important streets – a place associated internationally with the city’s LGBTQ+ community, but also a brilliant example of how people, culture and changing attitudes can completely redefine an urban neighbourhood.
From left to right:
🔹 The Rembrandt Bar and Hotel (33 Sackville Street) - The site was already operating as a pub in the 19th century, originally as the Ogden Arms, before becoming the Rembrandt in 1961 and developing into one of Manchester’s longest-established gay venues. Famously the first Manchester Pride took place over the August Bank Holiday in 1985 outside the Rembrandt.
🔹 Via Manchester (28-30 Canal Street) - The building was previously a carpet warehouse but was dramatically reinvented as Via Fossa in 1995, at a time when the Village was undergoing rapid change and becoming an increasingly important part of Manchester’s nightlife and identity. It would later gain an even wider audience through its association with Queer as Folk which was broadcast on Channel 4 in 1999 and 2000.
🔹 BarPop (10 Canal Street) - As outlined above, this building was previously home to the Playboy Club from 1973 to 1982. BarPop opened in 2013.
🔹 LEVEN and MAYA Manchester (40 Chorlton Street) - In 1996, Oliver Peyton transformed the former industrial building into Mash & Air: an ambitious combination of restaurants, bars and its own microbrewery which became one of Manchester’s most talked-about venues of the late 1990s (I was lucky enough to have a family meal there on my graduation day in 1999!) After several subsequent incarnations, the building was reinvented once again, becoming home to the 42-bedroom LEVEN hotel in 2021, followed by MAYA in 2024, which occupies the ground and lower-ground levels.