Birmingham Canal Navigations

The Hyatt Regency Birmingham is a hotel on Broad Street in the city centre of Birmingham, England. Hyatt Regency Birmingham stands at a height of 75 metres (246 feet) 24 floors and has 319 guest rooms. The hotel has a blue glass exterior facade, and stands across the road from the International Convention Centre.The hotel was built, and is run by, Hyatt Regency Birmingham Ltd. This company is a public-sector/private-sector partnership between the Hyatt Corporation, Trafalgar House, and Birmingham City Council. The hotel cost £37 million to build, with £1.5 million of that being provided by the city, which also donated the building site, which was, according to estimates, worth £615,000 in 1987. In April 2002, the company (with the NEC Group as the third majority shareholder, after the demise of Trafalgar House) put the hotel building up for sale. In November 2002, the hotel was sold to London Plaza Hotels for £27.5 million, with Hyatt Regency Birmingham Ltd continuing to operate it. Birmingham City Council made a £5 million profit on the sale, from its 17.5% stake in the hotel, which it used to pay off debt. The hotel was specifically constructed to have close ties to the International Convention Centre, including a private-access bridge that joins the two. This easy to secure link was one factor in attracting the 24th G8 summit to the city, as well as the 2000 NATO Meeting of Defence Ministers.The Hyatt Hotels Corporation bought the hotel out of administration in 2012 for £27 million. In 2014, they made a £6 million investment into the hotel which included a new pub with a heated terrace which opens onto Broad Street - The Gentleman & Scholar Pub and Terrace. In 2016, the hotel was bought by a Middle East investment group (an affiliate of Sharjah-based Bin Otaiba) for £38.6 million. The hotel will keep its Hyatt Regency branding. The purchaser plans to spend approximately £2.7 million over the next three years on improving the venue. As a result of its links with the conference centre, the Hyatt is the base for the Prime Minister when the Conservative Party conference is hosted in Birmingham.

Gas Street Basin (grid reference SP062866) is a canal basin in the centre of Birmingham, England, where the Worcester and Birmingham Canal meets the BCN Main Line. It is located on Gas Street, off Broad Street, and between the Mailbox and Brindleyplace canal-side developments.

The Worcester and Birmingham Canal is a canal linking Birmingham and Worcester in England. It starts in Worcester, as an 'offshoot' of the River Severn (just after the river lock) and ends in Gas Street Basin in Birmingham. It is 29 miles (47 km) long. There are 58 locks in total on the canal, including the 30 Tardebigge Locks, one of the longest lock flights in Europe. The canal climbs 428 feet (130 m) from Worcester to Birmingham. The canal also has connections with the Stratford-upon-Avon Canal, and the restored Droitwich Canal, it historically linked to the Dudley Canal Line No 2, until the route through the Lapal Tunnel was abandoned in 1917.

Boulton, Watt and Murdoch is a gilded bronze statue depicting Matthew Boulton, James Watt, and William Murdoch by William Bloye, assisted by Raymond Forbes Kings. It stands on a plinth of Portland stone. It has often been described as Messrs Lee and Longland discussing a roll of wallpaper with a customer and is also known as The Golden Boys after its colour, or The Carpet Salesmen after the partially rolled-up plan of a steam engine which they are examining. In 1939 an £8,000 bequest from Richard Wheatley, and £7,500 from the City Council, enabled the work to be created and it was unveiled in 1956, from preliminary designs drawn up in 1938. In 1956 the statue was erected temporarily outside the Birmingham Register Office which is where it stood until the statue was restored and re-gilded in September 2006. In 2017 it was temporarily put into storage to allow construction of the West Midlands Metro; it was reinstalled on the plinth in Centenary Square outside Symphony Hall on 29 April 2022.

The Gas Retort House (grid reference SP062865) at 39 Gas Street, Birmingham, England is the last remaining building of Birmingham's first gas works. It was rediscovered in 1992 during a proposed redevelopment of land on Gas Street when the city planning department noticed the unusual roof design of cast iron trusses and wrought iron rods. The building is licensed for Church of England worship and known as St Luke's Gas Street.

The Wheel of Birmingham or Birmingham Wheel was a series of transportable Ferris wheel installations at Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. These have been landmarks in central Birmingham, visible from many parts of the city. The first opened on 6 November 2003, and its replacement opened on 21 October 2004, both being 60 metres (197 ft) tall. A third wheel, the Birmingham Mail Wheel, operated from 18 January 2010 until 22 February 2010, and was also 60 m tall.

The former headquarters of the Birmingham Municipal Bank is a Grade II listed building by Thomas Cecil Howitt opposite what is now Centenary Square at 301 Broad Street, Birmingham, England. The building was opened on 27 November 1933 by Prince George. The BMB ceased to be a department of the city council in 1976, becoming a trustee savings bank,After the bank vacated the building, it was sold in 2006 to Birmingham City Council. The building was granted grade II listed status on 14 October 1996.In November 2017, the University of Birmingham completed the purchase of the Municipal Bank building. It is planned to create a city centre showcase to display its research and host performances and exhibitions.

Centenary Square is a public square on the north side of Broad Street in Birmingham, England, named in 1989 to commemorate the centenary of Birmingham achieving city status. The area was an industrial area of small workshops and canal wharves before it was purchased by the council in the 1920s for the creation of a grand civic centre scheme to include museums, council offices, cathedral and opera house. The scheme was abandoned after the arrival of World War II with only the Hall of Memory and half of the planned Baskerville House complete. After the war the scheme was revived in a simpler form however the council never managed to implement the design. In 1991 the square was redesigned to complement the new International Convention Centre with new paving, railings and lamps designed by artist Tess Jaray, a fountain and several sculptures. During the construction and opening of the Library of Birmingham on the square in 2013 several of the elements of the 1991 design were removed and a library amphitheatre was built into the square. In 2014 a design competition was held to redesign the square. Construction of the redesigned square began in 2017 and was largely complete in 2019. The square is used as a staging area for many of the city's main cultural events including the Frankfurt Christmas Market, Arts Festivals, Remembrance Day Services, New Year's Celebrations and during Christmas hosts a temporary ice rink and Ferris wheel.

A Real Birmingham Family is a public artwork and sculpture by Gillian Wearing, cast in bronze, and erected in Centenary Square, outside the Library of Birmingham, England, on 30 October 2014.It depicts two local sisters, each single mothers called Roma and Emma Jones, with their two children; Roma's son Kyan and Emma's son Shaye. Emma is depicted as pregnant with a second son, Isaac, who was born before the sculpture was unveiled. A small plaque laid on the ground in front of the work describes it. In a process begun in 2011, and coordinated by the city's Ikon Gallery, nominations for a "real" local family to model for the sculpture were invited. The Joneses were selected from a shortlist, by an independent panel, in August 2013.Wearing said: I really liked how Roma and Emma Jones spoke of their closeness as sisters and how they supported each other. It seemed a very strong bond, one of friendship and family, and the sculpture puts across that connectedness between them. A nuclear family is one reality but it is one of many and this work celebrates the idea that what constitutes a family should not be fixed. The £100,000 cost of the work was covered by a combination of public money and private donations. The casting was carried out in China. The project follows Wearing's 2008 work, A Typical Trentino Family.In November 2014 shortly after being unveiled, New Fathers 4 Justice activist Bobby Smith covered the statue with a white sheet and pictures of his two daughters. Smith commented, "They’ve depicted the normal family with no fathers... I believe kids are always better off with both parents in their lives."The statue went into storage in May 2017, to allow work for the redevelopment of Centenary Square to begin.

The Holliday Street aqueduct is a Grade II listed aqueduct at the start of the Worcester and Birmingham Canal in central Birmingham, England. Built in 1870 the cast iron structure carries the canal and a wide access road originally leading from Bridge Street to Worcester Wharf (now housing) over Holliday Street very close to the Worcester Bar stop lock in Gas Street Basin. Immediately to the south of Holliday Street the Cross-City Line (originally the Birmingham West Suburban Railway) rail line runs in a tunnel parallel to Holliday Street. A short distance south of that is the disused rail tunnel of the original line which terminated at Central Goods railway station (the previous terminus of the Birmingham West Suburban Railway). Immediately south of the disused rail tunnel the canal turns sharply between The Mailbox and The Cube through ninety degrees to run parallel to the rail tunnels.

Gas Street Studios is a studio complex operated by ITV plc in Birmingham, England. The complex is currently only used by ITV Central for the broadcast of ITV News Central and much of the complex has been sold off for other uses. The complex had also previously been used for other broadcasts including the former home of CITV. Today only 45 ITV Central staff work at the Gas Street Studios, significantly less than in June 1997 when the studios opened and there were over 200 staff working at ITV Central studios.

Birmingham Repertory Theatre, commonly called Birmingham Rep or just The Rep, is a producing theatre based on Centenary Square in Birmingham, England. Founded by Billie Lester , it is the longest-established of Britain's building-based theatre companies and one of its most consistently innovative.Today The Rep produces a wide range of drama in its three auditoria – The House with 825 seats, The Studio with 300 seats and The Door with 140 seats – much of which goes on to tour nationally and internationally. The company retains its commitment to new writing and in the five years to 2013 commissioned and produced 130 new plays.The company's former home, now known as "Old Rep", is still in use as a theatre.