Converted brick warehouses and plate glass bar fronts along the Rochdale Canal, where Queer as Folk turned Cruz 101 into Babylon.
What Manchester Gay Village looks like
Canal Street runs pedestrianised along the west bank of the Rochdale Canal, brick paving and cobbles underfoot with a low stone wall and iron railing along the water's edge. Cast iron fire escapes climb the red brick warehouse walls opposite, and a green painted footbridge crosses to the towpath on the far side.
Ground floor fronts along the street are mostly large plate glass windows rather than the smaller shopfronts common elsewhere in the city centre, hung with awnings, string lights and hanging flower baskets. Bollards run down both sides of the roadway, since the street is closed to traffic. Bunting is strung tree to tree above the bricks for much of the year.
At the Princess Street end the canal narrows at , a stone chamber with its own cast iron footbridge. The New Union stands on the corner nearby, two storeys of red brick with a painted stucco ground floor and a slate roof. sits further along the same stretch of water, boxed in by taller brick warehouse walls with fire escapes zigzagging up the outside.
faces the street from across the water, a strip of lawn and trees between the canal and the college building behind it. After dark the trees along the towpath carry strings of small lights, and the lit windows and signs double in the water.
Shot in Manchester Gay Village
For the Channel 4 series Queer as Folk in 1999, the production swapped the exterior signage and lighting of the nightclub to read Babylon. The building kept the new name for the length of the shoot, then went back to advertising Cruz 101 once filming wrapped.
Queer as Folk, 1999
Cruz 101
Played Babylon, 1999
Cruz 101's own exterior signage and lighting were changed to read Babylon for the run of the shoot, and restored once filming finished. The nightclub occupies a former shipping warehouse at the Canal Street end of Princess Street and still trades as Cruz 101.
What Manchester Gay Village can double for
Canal Street in Nottingham, Nottinghamshire
Nottingham has its own Canal Street, where the Canalhouse pub occupies a converted canal cargo warehouse built in 1895 for Fellows, Morton and Clayton. Its brick is browner and patterned with courses of blue and yellow brick, and the conversion kept two of the original loading bays open onto the water. The terracotta banding and the boat moored inside the building are giveaways particular to this pub, so a wider shot of the brick alone reads closer to Manchester's own warehouse conversions. Try searching canal warehouse pub conversion now.
Gas Street Basin in Birmingham, West Midlands
Gas Street Basin turned its Victorian canal warehouses and cottages into bars in a 1990s conversion, the same decade Manto's plate glass front reshaped Canal Street. The towpath there is wider and busier, with narrowboats moored two and three deep along the water. Keep the moored boats and any newer glass buildings around the basin's edges out of frame, since Birmingham's redevelopment reaches further back from the water than Manchester's stretch does. Try searching 1990s canal bar conversion now.
Victoria Quays in Sheffield, South Yorkshire
Victoria Quays restored its early nineteenth century Terminal Warehouse and a row of coal merchants offices into bars and cafes between 1992 and 1994, in a similar red brick to Canal Street's own canal conversions. The basin here is wider than a towpath, and the steel framed Straddle Warehouse nearby looks more heavily industrial than anything on Canal Street. The marina moorings and the Straddle Warehouse's own arches would need to stay out of a wide shot for the comparison to hold, and the basin's open water reads differently from Canal Street's narrow channel. Try searching restored canal warehouse bars now.
