Friday, 2 April 2010

Tiffany's / Tropicana, Oxford Street


Tiffany's, Oxford Road, 1979. (c) Manchester District Music Archive [1].

We're not including nightclubs on our tour of Manchester's pubs but it would be rude not to acknowledge some of the great clubs that Manchester had back in the day. So we'll include some of the more famous ones and ones we find photos or facts on. Tiffany's on Oxford Street was just one of many night-spots along this stretch.

Tiffany's ticket stub. (c) Manchester District Music Archive.

Before Tiffany's this was the Plaza Ballroom, as seen here in 1940, and a certain Jimmy Saville used to run dinnertime rock 'n' roll dances there before finding fame on Top of the Pops (which, of course, started off in Manchester, in Dickinson Road in Rusholme). These dances sound sedate but apparently, "when a fight broke out Saville would leap to the middle of the stage and shout, 'right my lads, get 'em', and his bouncers would knock the shit out of the lads doing the fighting [1]".


Tiffany's inside, 1977. (c) Manchester District Music Archive.

The cool cats above having a sup at the bar in Tiffany's are DJs Steve Reno, Mike Shaft, Jonny Owen and Steve Turner [2]. Tiffany's became Tropicana for a time before closing.

Tropicana, Oxford Road. (c) .

1. www.mdmarchive.co.uk/archive/showartefact.php?bid=4754

2 comments:

  1. Just been discussing this and heard it may have been called Plaza before Tiffany's. Not sure if that's right?

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  2. "Before Tiffany's this was the Plaza Ballroom, as seen here in 1940, and a certain Jimmy Saville used to run dinnertime rock 'n' roll dances there before finding fame on Top of the Pops..."

    That was before we all found out he was a f#cking pervert

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