Corporation Street, Birmingham, West Midlands
An early photograph showing people crossing Corporation Street. The building on the left is the Cobden Coffee Palace built by W. Doubleday in 1883 for the Birmingham Coffee-House Company. An act of parliament in 1875 had given town/city corporations the power to buy, demolish and redevelop slum areas. In Birmingham the corporation bought and cleared a large area to create a new 'Parisian-style Boulevard', called Corporation Street. It cost around £1.5 million to build and required the demolition of around 600 buildings.
