Monroe's/Motel One...

Manchester's burgeoning tourist/business trade brings millions of people to the city every year. Many need somewhere to rest their heads at night. Sometimes the demand is so great that people are being sent to Liverpool, Chester and even as far as Blackpool to find a room. Hotels are popping up or being planned for all over the city.

This is a new one just by Piccadilly Station called Motel One. It's a budget one. They tore down a rather run down hotel (when they got inside they discovered it was really a house of ill repute, whatever that means) to build this.

I'm not keen on the new build. It's a bit too brutal for my liking, too much blank wall and not enough glass. But I do like the way it cradles, protects and shows off the other building which is another little hotel called Monroe's. It sort of reminded me of the view from the Hilton Hotel on 6th Avenue in New York. True, there isn't a forest of skyscrapers and you can't see Central Park as we could from our room high in the tower. But across the avenue from the hotel there was a modern skyscraper that had been wrapped around a much older, smaller one, protecting and showing it off at the same time. These two buildings do the same thing but on a Manchester scale.