Manchester Photo Gallery

The canal brought economic might to Manchester. The Industrial Revolution transformed the city into a textiles manfacturing centre in the late late 18th to 19th centuries from cotton sourced in the New World. Things in "Cottonopolis" looked good for the bourgeois, but for the working poor, conditions were dire. Overcrowded and polluted, it gave inspiration to Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx's Communist Manifesto. On the other side of the pond, the Americans were also industrializing and started to take a good chunk of the textile business. After World War II, manufacturing continued to decline and the docks closed for good in 1982. There's still a lot of grand Victorian architecture around the city centre, contrasted nicely by new glassy skyscrapers. The city centre is fairly compact and attractions are walkable to each other. The only time I took public transport was to Salford Quays to see their regeneration work on the former docks.
Salford Quays (on the ground)	John Rylands Library
Major Historic Sights	Cathedral
Other Historic Architecture	City Centre Views From the Air
Salford Quays From the Air (Part 1)	Salford Quays From the Air (Part 2)