Only certain generations will remember the city as it looks here
Incredible footage offers a glimpse of what Liverpool looked like from the sky around 90 years ago. Today, drone footage enables us to see around our city region in all its glory from above – more regularly than ever before.
But these fascinating scenes capture what many parts of the city-centre and beyond looked like frozen in a moment in time generations ago. Unearthed from the Getty archives, courtesy of Grinberg, Paramount and Pathe Newsreels, the camera films aerial views of the city, beginning with the waterfront on the River Mersey and then travelling up towards Southport.
Taken in the mid-1930s, before the Second World War began, the silent video is only brief at 55 seconds long. Initially, the black and white footage shows the Three Graces and a number of ferries and boats along the dock.
In the distance, you can see what the landscape of the city centre looked at the time. Moving along, the footage gets a bit unstable, but captures more ships along the Mersey. With no voiceover or sound, a title card then reads: “Here’s Southport, said our pilot – Captain Monks.”
Following this, viewers can then see Southport from above as it looked at the time. A very small number of readers may still remember life in our region at this time.
And for those who are younger, it acts as a window into our past. The filming took place during the same decade The Wizard of Oz starring Judy Garland was released, actor Clint Eastwood was born and in relation to Liverpool, the Queensway Tunnel officially opened.
As the years have go on, a lot has changed and developed, as seen in the video above. Through the years, the ECHO has also shared our own archived images of Liverpool from above.
Courtesy of our archives, Mirrorpix, our images were taken from the 1960s to the 1990s. You can see more here.
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