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The prison, the red light district and the now banished 'Counterfeit Street' .

When you think about Strangeways , chances are these are the first things that spring to mind. In a rapidly gentrifying city centre, it's arguably the last vestige of grit.

But over the last decade or so the area has also quietly emerged at the heart of Manchester's thriving underground arts and music scene.

As rents in the city centre climb up-and-up, artists, musicians, DJs, recording studios and nightclubs have made a home for themselves among the fast fashion warehouses, kebab shops and massage parlours on the warren of backstreets in and around Bury New Road and Cheetham Hill Road.

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