The Crescent was a concrete fortress of foxhole-like flats, a bleak place where even in summertime the chill winds rattled the rusty letterboxes that had been nailed shut to stop summonses being served, and to prevent irate unpaid dealers from pouring petrol onto threadbare carpets & naked concrete floors.
The Crescent was located in Hulme, which was a dire dormitory suburb of Manchester, and was not unlike a pre- perestroika Soviet prison. It was a post-modern, premillennial eyesore, one that sheltered opiate-ravaged tenants who were more akin to institutionalised inmates.
This was a high-rise hell where consumptive, hollow-eyed divorcees birthed hellions with empty larders for stomachs, that growled relentlessly like angry attack dogs.
Time eventually put paid to the Crescent, and it was razed to the ground in 1991 without fanfare nor mourning. It wasn’t missed, because unlike the Situationist’s notional hacienda, the Crescent should never have been built.
(c) 2017 Rahman the Writer
Rahman the Writer 