On Mon, 15 Aug 2005 00:04:10 GMT, "Richard J."
wrote:

Piccadilly Gardens was my one disappointment when I spent a few days
last month in Manchester, a city I knew well until about 5 years ago.
It now rivals Jubilee Gardens in London for the worst city centre garden
in the country. (There used to be a website of an American couple who
picked out Jubilee Gardens as a romantic-sounding spot in London to have
their wedding blessed, and were deeply disappointed that it didn't even
have a single tree.)

It is total rubbish. There's the Berlin Wall, the fountains never
work, the lawns flood when it rains and have been worn bare by people
walking on them. I'm starting to miss the winos and smackheads in the
old sunken garden!

But then again it was brought to us by the council who let the Free
Trade
Hall be gutted internally and turned into a faceless hotel

I thought Manchester's council/planners/whoever had done rather well in
the rest of the city centre. As for the Free Trade Hall, it always had
a better frontage outside than acoustics inside IMHO. At least they've
kept the frontage, so "faceless" is not literally true.

I'll let you have that on the FTH

Overall they've done OK but there are one or two abomonations
around...