Manchester's Best Street
Reviews

From: Joe Taylor
Category: Exhibitions
Date: 07 January 2002

Review

Oldham Street

Record shops - there are loads on or nearby including Vinyl Exchange (great for cheapo >£1 and rare vinyl, good plastic bags too, the relocated Piccadilly Records (your classic, High Fidelity-esque indie record shop; plastic bags slightly less durable but more stylish), Beatin' Rhythm on Tib Street (generally agreed to be the best Northern Soul shop in the world; plastic bags unremarkable but own brand clothing has a certain appeal) and Eastern Bloc (techno etc, not sure about the plastic bags).

Clothes shops - Westworld Clothing company is highly recommended for Carhart etc. In fact, there are more decent skate/surf/Carhart clothing shops on Oldham Street than in the whole of London.

Affleck's Palace, once the spritiual home of baggy, now full of greebo kids is also on Oldham Street. Novelty condoms, pop posters, second hand clothes, new clothes, vintage jukeboxes (to play, not to sell).

Combine all of the above and knock pounds of your purchase - Oxfam Super Savers. When all other Oxfams from around Manchester can't sell stuff, they send it here to be sold even cheaper. Despite that, it is a cut above the average charity shop, and they sell great boiler suits for £1 (subject to availability).

Drinks - Dry Bar is here. This is the bar that sprang out of the Hacienda. Just as most fashionable clubs nowadays are modelled on the Hacienda (huge, superfluous, metal air ventilation pipes, bricks and breezeblocks etc...), so all pseudo-industrial bars are modelled on Dry. Unfortunately it's also a bit scratty. Next door is the very pleasant Night & Day Cafe, for expensive Mexican bottled beers.

A word of warning - carry up Oldham Street too far and you get to Oldham Road and eventually Oldham.

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