Hamburg as the "fun city of Europe". Unlicensed coffee bars where people listened to live and recorded music and which did not serve alcohol were effectively outside police control. A 1965 police report by plain-clothes cadets known as the "mod squad" described them as unsanitary, dimly-lit drug dens, run by "men of colour", where young men were fleeced of their money and young women trapped into prostitution. The Manchester Corporation Act 1965 was passed after the report and closed most of them. The Cinephone Cinema was the first in Manchester to show 'continental' X-rated films, mostly erotica. Second-hand bookstalls and what Lee described as "Manchester's very own Carnaby Street" had opened by the early 1970s. The Seven Stars on Withy Grove was one of Manchester's oldest pubs, with a licence dating back to 1356; Redford claimed it to be "oldest licensed house in Great Britain", though this was probably not the case. Design and construction The architects were Hugh Wilson and J. L. Womersley. Their work together included Hulme Crescents and the Manchester Education Precinct. Womersley, as Sheffield City Architect, was responsible for the post-war redevelopment of Sheffield in the 1950s and 1960s including the city centre as well as extensive residential estates, notably Park Hill. The developers and the corporation did not allow the architects a free hand. The developers demanded a closed building with little natural light and rejected a more open, roof-lit design. The corporation insisted on a bus station, market, car parking, an underground railway station, and provision for deck access to subsequent developments. Cannon Street was to be kept open with no shop frontages. Corporation Street and High Street were allowed shop fronts on the returns to Market Street. Market Street, a busy thoroughfare, had shop fronts as pedestrianisation was proposed, though this did not happen until 1981. Display windows were forbidden on most of the external walls of the centre and were instead inside. The architects, developers, and city council did not communicate well. The architects realised that "the brief [as] given ... would produce a very introverted building. And we said this would not be attractive". Construction started in 1972 and the centre opened in stages, with the Arndale Tower and 60 shops opening in September 1976, followed by Knightsbridge Mall (the bridge over Market Street) in May 1977, the northern mall in October 1977, the market hall, Boots, and the bridge to