Sandy Row

[Bruce Wayne]

The photo featuring the girl could be anywhere but is it Glenalpin Street?

[carbolicsoap]

The photo featuring the girl could be anywhere but is it Glenalpin Street?

Thats one of the streets of Blythe street...at a guess I'd say Majestic street,judging by the position of the city tower block.

[Pennywhistle]

The photo featuring the girl could be anywhere but is it Glenalpin Street?

Bruce Wayne.
The positioning  of the Tower Block of The City Hospita  in the background,by my reckoning, places the street a bit further up the "Road".My best guess is that the houses were in Bentham Street.The photographer was standing on what may have been close to the top of Hunter Street/Matilda St. and the roadway would,if I am correct, have been Oswald Street.

[Bruce Wayne]

Thanks carbolicsoap and Pennywhistle for keeping me right, as time goes by one (no not the royal one) becomes a bit lost in the so called "mists of time"!   

[Pennywhistle]

Thats one of the streets of Blythe street...at a guess I'd say Majestic street,judging by the position of the city tower block.

Sorry Carbolic Soap!!
Looks like our replies  to Bruce Wayne were neck and neck.Only spotted your own after I "hit the button".

[Bruce Wayne]

Just thinking about the old Sandy Row which most of us on here know and love, doesn't it break your heart to see what it's like today? I used to love the crowds there especially on the 11th night in the 50s and 60s when it was a big party. Most of us knew the kitchen house, two up and two down with the tin bath hanging in the yard and of course the yard itself!
 
I know progress was inevitable but the Sandy Row we knew and loved has been taken away by so called progress and redevelopment. I know that all areas of the town have experienced the same changes, but long ago those were happy days, that's why most of us are on here.   .gone forever!

[carbolicsoap]

Just thinking about the old Sandy Row which most of us on here know and love, doesn't it break your heart to see what it's like today? I used to love the crowds there especially on the 11th night in the 50s and 60s when it was a big party. Most of us knew the kitchen house, two up and two down with the tin bath hanging in the yard and of course the yard itself!
 
I know progress was inevitable but the Sandy Row we knew and loved has been taken away by so called progress and redevelopment. I know that all areas of the town have experienced the same changes, but long ago those were happy days, that's why most of us are on here.   .gone forever!

I agree.I'am younger than most on this thread,I remember Sandy Row in the 70's and 80's.It's easy to get carried away with the romance of it all.I remember my ma taking us down Sandy Row every saturday...the pavements would be black with people and it seemed that everyone knew everyone. You didn't have to leave the Row...everything was there on your doorstep.Sadly the houses were awful,but the people seemed happy.They knocked row upon row of terrace housing down....and many people moved on elsewhere,never to return.
The village area will go the same way.....there are streets up there now lying empty and blocked up.It seems to be what most of the people want...and it's cheaper to bulldoze them and build new.
Another little peice of Belfast will be consigned to the history books.

[Pennywhistle]

pennywistle, my wifes granmother lived at 54 hunter street ring any bells?

Hi! "Addison".
I don't have a street directory (YET!) but from memory and at least in my time and starting from (No. 32) ,Maisie Moore's shop (No.34)Maisie Moore's house,(36) the Johnstons (38) Mrs.Currie,(40) Mr.Mrs Nicholson,(42)"Chez nous!",(44) The Blackledges, (my cousins), (46) The Neilly's,(48) John Baillie,(50) The Browns,(52)The Currie's,and (54) being the Niblocks.
 
I have a very distant memory of an old lady but not much else.There were two daughters living there,"Emma and Betty"(?) and Dennis.
I half expected that Dennis would end up on T.V. as he was brilliant on the acoustic guitar."Apache and F.B I" were east meat for him and often he would sit on a window sill towards Maisie Moore's and entertain us.Dennis and (young) Artie  Cahoon,(No.56) did go on to have a group and practiced in the room above "The Oul House" on the corner of Schomberg Street.
 
Dennis might have been influenced by  the "skiffle" period, and  set up outside (young) Davy McCrum's shop with a washboard,an
 upturned T-chest,with "Monarch Laundry" twine fitted to one corner at tied to the top of a brush shaft.(An improvised "double-bass")! Dennis,I
 am sure,did vocals and lead guitar!!

[Bruce Wayne]

I remember visiting my father-in-law in the BCH Tower Block in the late 1980s. I looked over the Row and was surprised it was so tiny with so few houses. Not the Row I knew. Today I was visiting May Waring, I'm not sure of her maiden name, but she lived in Hurst Street facing the school. we talked about the Row and as far as I know she wrote a poem which was included in the book about Sandy Row.

[carbolicsoap]

Hi! "Addison".
I don't have a street directory (YET!) but from memory and at least in my time and starting from (No. 32) ,Maisie Moore's shop (No.34)Maisie Moore's house,(36) the Johnstons (38) Mrs.Currie,(40) Mr.Mrs Nicholson,(42)"Chez nous!",(44) The Blackledges, (my cousins), (46) The Neilly's,(48) John Baillie,(50) The Browns,(52)The Currie's,and (54) being the Niblocks.
 
I have a very distant memory of an old lady but not much else.There were two daughters living there,"Emma and Betty"(?) and Dennis.
I half expected that Dennis would end up on T.V. as he was brilliant on the acoustic guitar."Apache and F.B I" were east meat for him and often he would sit on a window sill towards Maisie Moore's and entertain us.Dennis and (young) Artie  Cahoon,(No.56) did go on to have a group and practiced in the room above "The Oul House" on the corner of Schomberg Street.
 
Dennis might have been influenced by  the "skiffle" period, and  set up outside (young) Davy McCrum's shop with a washboard,an
 upturned T-chest,with "Monarch Laundry" twine fitted to one corner at tied to the top of a brush shaft.(An improvised "double-bass")! Dennis,I
 am sure,did vocals and lead guitar!!

Give me a few minutes pennywhistle...I'll scan the street directory from 1955 if thats any good?

[carbolicsoap]

[carbolicsoap]

 
Hopefully these are of some use to you.Hunter street,street directory 1955.

[Addison]

Pennywhistle, Thank you for your reply, your memory is very good my wife's grandmother who lived at 54 Hunter Street was Bella Bruce, she lost her husband James Bruce in the 1st world war and had a son called sandy (my wife's father). She later married a man called Niblock and had Emma and Betty to him (both still living), will show my wife your reply in the morning.  Addison.

[Bruce Wayne]

Carbolicsoap, could you scan McAdam Street please? My mother is visiting me early tomorrow and I'm sure she'd like a wee look!

[carbolicsoap]

Carbolicsoap, could you scan McAdam Street please? My mother is visiting me early tomorrow and I'm sure she'd like a wee look!

No worries...give me a few minutes.