Leading lights remembered at First Street
ASK Developments is naming the main square at its First Street scheme after the late journalist and record label boss Tony Wilson.
It is part of a naming strategy that will see roads in the large mixed-use scheme off Whitworth Street taking the names of other talents from the city.
Tony Wilson was a Granada TV journalist who went on to set up Factory records which championed bands such as New Order and the Happy Mondays. Factory and New Order set up the Hacienda nightclub in a now demolished building oposite the First Street site.
Other streets will be named after: the Cheetham Hill-born playwright Jack Rosenthal; Isabella Banks, the Victorian writer remembered for her novel The Manchester Man; Annie Horniman, who ran the Gaiety Theatre in Peter Street from 1912-20 which fostered what became known as the Manchester School of dramatists; and James Grigor, chairman of the Central Manchester Development Corporation from 1988-1996 when the city developed Bridgewater Hall and attracted the British Council to an office block which is now Number One First Street.
John Hughes, managing director of Ask, said: “More than most cities, Manchester has a long history of inventiveness, with many firsts and famous people who have shaped the city and its culture.
“It was impossible for us to recognise every Manchester son and daughter within the development, so instead we have tried to create a suite of names that not only work well together but that showcase Manchester’s rich creative history; names that join the past and the present, with a mix of well-known celebrities alongside some perhaps lesser known personalities which carry weight and substance.”
First Street includes an INNSIDE hotel, a Q-Park multi-storey car park, high-end student apartments, retail and leisure units; and the £25m HOME cinema and theatre.
