Buchanan Street

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Buchanan Street
Street in Glasgow
Buchanan Street
Buchanan Street at night looking south, overlooked by the Donald Dewar statue.
Basic data
place Glasgow
Technical specifications
Street length 0.8 km

The Buchanan Street is one of the busiest shopping streets in Glasgow , the largest city in Scotland . It forms the central section of Glasgow's well-known shopping district and offers a more upscale selection of shops than the adjacent streets, Argyle Street and Sauchiehall Street.

History of the road

Buchanan Street looking south to Argyle Street and the River Clyde. The green glass entrance to Buchanan Street Subway Station can be seen in the center.

The fief of Buchanan Street was first granted in 1777 and the street was named after the wealthy Tobacco Lord , plantation owner and former Glasgow mayor Andrew Buchanan of the Buchanan, Hastie, & Co. company. He owned the land on which Argyle Street was built up to Gordon Street to the north. When Andrew Buchanan died in 1759, his son James Buchanan von Drumpellier (who was also mayor twice) inherited his tobacco empire. After the American Revolution in 1776, the family suffered great losses, which led to the fact that they lost all of their plantations in Virginia , which is why the family members switched to the textile business and expanded into the industrial sector. The land sales probably served at least in part to offset the initial losses. Both Palladian mansions, which resembled the 18th-century mansions on Argyle Street, Miller Street, and Queen Street, and other row houses were built along Buchanan Street from the 1790s, similar to George Square and the new Royal Exchange Square. Shops, hotels, banks, office buildings and clubs soon followed, including the Western Club and the Athenaeum, later known as the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland , accessed via St. George's Place. West of Buchanan Street, the Blythswood Hill and Blythswood Square construction projects by William Harley and others followed shortly thereafter.

controversy

Many of the "Tobacco Lords" profited from the use of slaves for their tobacco harvest. As part of the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020, many of the streets in the Merchant City neighborhood that were named after Tobacco Lords have been unofficially renamed by anti-racism protesters.

Protesters posted alternative street names in honor of famous black men and women next to official street signs. Buchanan Street was renamed George Floyd Street, the death of which at the hands of Minnesota police fueled the global Black Lives Matter movement.

Web links

Commons : Buchanan Street  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

proof

  1. ↑ Buchanan Street from The Gazetteer for Scotland ( en-gb ) Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  2. ↑ 'Glasgow should own up to its dark secret' ( en-gb ) October 26, 2018. Retrieved June 10, 2020.
  3. ↑ TheGlasgowStory: Buchanan Street c 1873 .
  4. ↑ TheGlasgowStory: Royal Bank of Scotland .
  5. ^ History - Western Club .
  6. ↑ The Athenaeum, St George's Place (renamed Nelson Mandela Place) off Buchanan Street, Glasgow .
  7. ↑ Black Lives Matter: Anti-racism campaigners rename streets across Glasgow ( en ) Retrieved July 26, 2020.
  8. ↑ Campaigners rename streets linked to slave owners . June 6, 2020. Accessed July 26, 2020.

Coordinates: 55 ° 51 ′ 44.7 "  N , 4 ° 15 ′ 12.3"  W.