Much change has taken place in Newcastle city centre since our main image was captured 50 years ago.
The likes of Eldon Square shopping centre, the Tyne and Wear Metro system, and the pedestrianisation of Northumberland Street were still some years off in December 1972 - while this striking building on Pilgrim Street was then home to the city's principal fire station.
If you're ever passing, you will see Roman numerals inscribed above the entrance showing the date 1931 - which was when construction work began. It was built on the site of the Victorian courts and police station which stood on the corner of Pilgrim Street and Worswick Street.
READ MORE: Back to school on Tyneside in the 1970s: 10 photographs from across the decade
The landmark building, completed in 1933, was set off with Portland stone columns. Look up at the white stone and you will notice four carvings of winged beasts, griffins, on the colonnades of the upper floors.
The official programme for the opening of the building read: “The mythical animal with the body of a lion, conventional wings and the head of an eagle, suggests the attributes of power, watchfulness and swiftness to act, qualities equally appropriate to the operation of the law as to the duties of the fire brigade."
The site became home to the city’s fire station, police station and magistrates’ court. The Market Street section of the building housed the police station and courts. The fire station, on Pilgrim Street, had space for seven fire engines. The site was finally vacated in the mid-2000s.
With the wider Pilgrim Street area now enjoying much-needed regeneration, creating new office and leisure space to form an impressive gateway into Newcastle city centre, plans for the future of the former fire station were revealed earlier this year.
ChronicleLive reported in June: "Newcastle city centre’s disused fire station will be transformed into a five-star hotel, after 'exciting' plans were approved by councillors.
"An £11.5m overhaul of the Pilgrim Street station, which has lain empty since 2005, will see it become a 60-bed hotel with a restaurant, bar, and pavement cafe." Read the full story here.
Our computer generated image shows how the transformed location will look in the not-too-distant future. It's a far cry from 1972 and we can only imagine what Pilgrim Street and wider Newcastle might be like 50 years time in 2072.
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Greggs in Newcastle's Greenmarket in 1977 - today the brand is a nationwide institution
The real route of Hadrian's Wall through Newcastle and North Tyneside
