Since I was a child I’ve been interested in cities. Even in primary school, I did projects on buildings and architecture in Manchester. Later I founded the Eyewitness in Manchester website, which I ran from 1997-2005, from 1998 in association with the early Manchester Evening News website. I used the website to campaign for architecture and local heritage. In 1999 on the site, I wrote an open letter to Manchester City Council, protesting against their plans for Piccadilly Gardens. 20 years later, it is generally acknowledged that the project was a failure, though the council haven’t apologised for their mistakes.
As I am also a traveller and linguist, I have discovered cities in other parts of the world, in particular, Berlin and the smaller but also fascinating city of Leipzig, once the second city of the Communist GDR. In 1968, something happened in the main square there, that I still find shocking even today. It is a terrible example of the destruction of heritage for misguided political reasons. But that has also happened in the UK and in Ireland. Are there any parallels between events in Manchester and Leipzig? Comments are welcome.
This is the English version. I published the German version of this video on 9 December 2020. This English version was published on Tuesday, 22 Dec 2020. The AVZINE channel is still in its early stages. Today, 3 months after is launch, there are 85 subscribers.
This is the last video I will do in parallel German and English versions. In future, all videos will be unique, the majority in English with German subtitles, some in German with English subtitles. I hope to introduce other languages later.
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