CENTRAL FIRE STATION DEMOLITION

The retro decades in particular were pretty active when it came to demolishing Dundee's old buildings, so much so that sometimes we thought the Councils motto was "What goes up, must come down"...(well, apart from their salaries!).

There was also a fair bit of new construction going on too, so over the next few days I'm going to put up a mix of images showing some structures going up, and some tumbling down.

Kicking off with this one here which is Bell Street Central Fire Station being knocked down in the late 60's.

The photo was taken from Courthouse Square looking over into the firemen's living quarters above the main station, with the entire corner area bulldozed.

Below the snap of the rubble is a photo of the fire crew who worked at Bell Street Station in the 60's.

It was sent in by Mark Ritchie whose father is the chap top left in the picture.

Bell Street was such an apt place-name to have a fire station too don't you think?!

Demolition photo is from Gordon C.

BURNT BREAD! - 1980'S

Here's what happened one day when The Bothy frazzled their toasties!

The Bothy, up the Conshie, was also called The Bread, a shortened version of it's posher name, The Breadalbane Arms.

Some people also called it The Howff, and you can see The Howff's name in the pictures - the Howff being the restaurant part of the establishment.

The fire, which started in the kitchen, took place on 27 January 1987.

Although the blaze caused around £300,000 damage, it did reopen again way later. It was renamed The Bread and the exterior repainted bright yellow.

Tell you what, all this smoke is making me feel a bit parched.

Oh eh ken - time for another retro pub craw, starting tomorrowl!

Photos by The Bear.

AD FROM THE 80'S - THE THREE BARRELS

This subtle ad is from 1981. No wording as to who it is, what it is or where it is. The gist of it being that The Three Barrels is so well known in Dundee that only this image is needed to remind everyone that it is the pub up Strathmartine Road.
At least Dundee's firemen knew of it's whereabouts anyway. In 1989 the pub was ablaze, but amazingly, because of quick action by the firies, managed to reopen for biz again in only a couple of weeks!