Its demolition for the St James Centre in the 1970s marked the biggest change witnessed in Edinburgh's city centre since the construction of Waverley Station more than a century earlier.
But while the number of people able to recall the old St James Square dwindles by the decade, there are many who feel its destruction was an act of civic vandalism on an unforgivable scale.
Initially conceived in the 1770s by New Town architect James Craig, St James Square was originally one of Edinburgh's most sought-after addresses.
