Day 149, council housing and student flat construction panorama

In 2007 there was a lot of activity near Netherthorpe and around Edward Street flats with construction of student flats next to Netherthorpe Road.

These views are all from the Robertshaw block at Brightmore Drive.  Never lived in any of these four blocks myself but have known people in three of them, one of them rescued an elderly lady that had become trapped in her kitchen.  He did this by climbing out over his balcony and onto hers.  Nine floors up, well done even if it was before modernisation - the drop would have rendered him flat on one side and mushy on the other before or after the cladding was applied.

Here looking over towards the Martin Street tower blocks on the other side of The Ponderosa or The P as we used to call it.  Apparently The Ponderosa picked up its name sometime in the 1960s and has been know as that since - it isn't a park but a designated open space.

The view across Netherthorpe Road towards the new construction.  Atlantic 1 Student's Quarter, I believe it said on the signs next to it.

Further up the hill with Edward Street flats in the background.  Edward Street flats are in the shape of a D, each flat is quite small inside and the building is a lot less grim than it appears externally.

And further up the hill we can see University buildings, Mappin Street, St George's Church, and the beginning of the demolition of a listed building.  Listing buildings is obviously not a protection against demolition, and the Edwardian part of Jessop's Hospital wasn't the most visually appealing externally, but there must have been some reason for the listing in the first place.  Aside - The listing of Park Hill flats has always seemed a little odd to me, why keep the whole edifice?  Why not just retain a representative small part of it, the lower rise end for example.  Having known people that lived there, and in one case murdered there, the place was a little past its best.  I don't think I ever walked through without a bottle being thrown at me, maybe that was just me and there was a sophisticated early warning system to detect my approach.  Anyway, it was a bloody awful place, Hyde Park flats were much less hazardous, ok, slightly less hazardous.  Enough of the extended and almost completely related aside...

Here's the view further up toward Brook Hill roundabout.  Next to the demolition of the listed Edwardian bit of Jessop's is the listed Victorian bit of Jessop's, the bit I was born in, I really am that old (I'm not that old, just because it's Victorian didn't mean they stopped using it after 1901).  The new building at the top on the right is a University building, The Bioincubator.  The Bioincubator opened in 2006 a few months before these pictures were taken in January 2007.

Just visible at the far right and just next to the Bioincubator building is the land being prepared for the construction of the Jessop West buildings.  The three story houses in the foreground are council properties.  Right in the centre of the picture are the row of shops which contained Butler's Balti, formerly the site of Butler's Cafe.  Butler's Cafe was one of the places where Picasso visited when he came to the Sheffield Peace Congress in 1950, he probably had a cuppa and drew some doves there.  Some dodgy building work a couple of years ago caused the Butler's building to completely collapse, well done you set of putz.

This concludes today's panoramic view.  Please place tips in the hat on your way out, thank you.