NOW THEN | ISSUE 11 | A MAGAZINE FOR MANCHESTER

We have all sorts of news to share along with this issue, our 11th. The final few drops of our ale collaboration with Marble Brewery are out and about (try the Marble Arch) after an incredibly successful run. Here's the photo blog of our brewing day again.

We have also launched our shiny new website, which will host each magazine's writing online. This time it features the Tycho interview, Mr Hass's art work, news, reviews and opinion, including features on Central Library, Urban Psychosis and nutritional reports - all the same as the printed magazine but with extra videos and links.

On Saturday 26 July we'll be in Moston for a free event, which is the area on the other side of Simon Bray's lens in our issue 11 photo feature. Running 2pm-7pm, the event includes a free DJing workshop run by Mind On Fire and Taste The Difference, followed by a special live soundtrack performance by beatboxer and vocal sculptor Jason Singh. If you don't know what a vocal sculptor is or does, then make you come armed with questions to ask him after his short talk about his craft. Sign up to the workshop by emailing ian at nowthenmagazine dot com with your name and 'MIND ON FIRE WORKSHOP' in the subject line. Did I mentioned it's free all day? See you there.

Here are our supporters for this issue (in page order). Be independent, buy independent.

MANCHESTER ACADEMY VENUES.
Manchester Academy.

MARBLE & NOW THEN ALE.
Marble Beers.

CHORLTON DRINKING.
Electrik / Volta.
MONO Chorlton.
Strange Brew.

FOOD AND DRINK.
Proof Chorlton.
Morley Cheek's.
International Anthony Burgess Foundation.

HEALTHY LIVING.
The Eighth Day Shop & Cafe.
Lotus Vegetarian Kitchen.Manchester Acupuncture Clinic.
Chin & Tonic.

ARTS & DESIGN.
East Street Arts.
Opus Distro.
Hazel Bee.
Chorlton Art Market.

GOING OUT IN MCR.
Museum of Science and Industry.
Hot Damn @ Liars Club.

SUMMER FESTIVALS.
Cloudspotting Festival 2014.
Ramsbottom Festival (sponsored by Outstanding Beers.).

MUSIC AND THEATRE PERFORMANCE.
Brighter Sound.
Band On The Wall.Into The Road @ 3MT.

TWENTY TWENTY TWO.
Brand new ping pong room now open.

Mucky Old Manchester: Central Library About to Disappear for Good

 

Manchester Central Library will soon be closed, and will remain that way for the next 3 years. During this time it will be completely gutted, its 22 miles of shelving packed carefully into moving boxes and its rare and unique archive materials handled cautiously into sealed containers.

When it returns to us in 2013, it will be "beautifully and sensitively restored" and will have grown "an adjoining, ultra-modern city centre community library"; a cyborg combination of faux-classical early 20th Century architecture and glass, plastic and computer.

Undoubtedly, Central Library is in dire need of a complete renovation. Walk in today and you'll note the blocky 1980s font above the ENQUIRIES desk, the scrawled graffiti, the musty smell and the horribly uncomfortable wooden chairs, designed for the early 20th Century flat, stiff back.

Currently, what Central Library is, is a snapshot of Manchester pre-IRA, pre-Beetham Tower, pre-Media City UK, in all its dilapidated post-industrial grandeur. And, despite Manchester's seemingly backwards-looking trend of late (see Urbis becoming football museum and the opening of Fac251), it is a piece of old Manchester that will soon cease to exist.

I urge you to go in, have a wander; before it disappears forever.

Words: James Roome