lo Squaderno (Mar 2017)
Re/dis-membering industrial histories in the British North development
Abstract
The two iconic blue cargo cranes that once loomed over the dockside in Salford, Northern England were demolished by the municipal authority in 2013. Dating from 1966, the loss of the cranes was lamented by local campaigners on aesthetic, heritage and political grounds. This was Salford! A city alert to its scars, where Engels, the Chartists and a radical literary canon populate the cultural memory. And yet there had been a slow-motion takeover. The docks were now Salford Quays a prestige private development of media, hospitality and real estate and the cranes had begun, said local politicians, to distract from the Quays vista (Salford Star, 2013). Any nostalgia for the cranes was misplaced, implied the authority, it was time for the city to move on. Moreover, all was not lost: those interested in accessing recreations of the cranes could now do so digitally, via a new smartphone app.
