At the Anglican Cathedral there were two sets of Nativity pieces - I think there were two of everything!
Tags: Liverpool Merseyside
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Collated from several web sites....
The construction of St Johns Beacon began in 1965, its main purpose was to provide a ventilation shaft for the shopping complex below.
It was completed in 1969, but due to new legislation, the building was never used as a ventilation shaft.
Standing 138 meters above sea level, the tower was the tallest building in Liverpool and remained so until the erection of the 40-storey Beetham West Tower in 2007, which is 140 meters.
The beacon originally housed a luxury revolving restaurant (opened 1970) that was once visited by Queen Elizabeth II. Both the façade and the restaurant floor seamlessly rotated as a single unit, and the roof served as an observation platform.
The Tower Restaurant closed its doors in 1979 due to health and safety concerns. A re-opening occurred in the early 1980s, featuring a reduced capacity and enhanced fire prevention measures.
By 1983, the restaurant underwent a transformation into a Buck Rogers space-themed eatery, only to face closure once again due to a lack of customers.
From the mid-80s it was mostly empty.
In late 1998, Radio City, under the ownership of Emap Radio at the time, expressed keen interest in revitalising the tower.
In 1999 the refurbishment commenced and the grand reopening took place in August 2000, transforming the iconic structure into the new home for Radio City 96.7 and Magic 1548. It cost ~£4 million.
The exterior observation deck, formerly perched atop the restaurant, was repurposed into a second floor, now housing offices and conference rooms for both radio stations.
The lower floor, once the site of the restaurant, was home to the studios. The original revolving structure and machinery were preserved during the refurbishment, with added brackets ensuring its stability.
In 2010, the first floor of the Radio City Tower welcomed the public on a full-time basis in return for an admission fee.
In 2020, a plan to build a zip wire between the tower and the central library was eventually vetoed by the then mayor, Joe Anderson.
The tower was listed Grade II in 2020, with Historic England describing it as “embodying the technological bravura and spirit of the space age”, historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/147166...
Radio City was rebranded in 2024 to Hits Radio Liverpool, and the decision was taken to move to a new office at ground level.
We visited in December 2024, not knowing that it was about to close until one of the staff mentioned redundancy when I was chatting with her.
The last live broadcast was on Christmas Eve 2024.
The future is uncertain. Ideas have been put forward but nothing settled on.
By January 2025, landlord Rivington Hark had appointed agents to find a new tenant. www.placenorthwest.co.uk/what-next-for-liverpools-radio-c...
Tags: Liverpool Merseyside
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The observation deck is some 400 feet above the city centre and on a clear day there are great views of the Wirral peninsula, North Wales, Lancashire and maybe even as far as the Lake District.
Tags: Liverpool Merseyside
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Queen Square Bus Station.
Tags: Liverpool Merseyside
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Including the shadow of the Tower and the Christmas fair at St George's Hall.
You can see the atrium of the Central Library - one of the past proposals for the Tower was to fling a zip wire from the Tower to the Central Library!
Tags: Liverpool Merseyside
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