Glasgow is a city of tenements. As you walk down the street it’s easy to get lost in the sandstone flats stretching along the street in what seems like a maze of four storey buildings, never taller than the width of the street. I, like many others, have lived ‘up the close’ my whole life, way back when they were much different from how they are today. To an outsider, Glasgow’s tenements may seem like a repeated pattern that the city has followed for decades.

Every street might look the same and it may seem like its been that way throughout history. What they don’t see is the inside story of those living ‘up the close’, the community that forms, the passing smiles in the corridor. Even though I’ve seen the city change, the tenements are a part of Glasgow that will always remain ingrained in the ‘weegie’ way of life.

Today, like most days, I sit in my bay window looking out over the sea of flats across the road and I wonder about the different lives of those inside. I look back through rose tinted glass and remember my childhood in ‘dirty old Glasgow’. I think about how much these flats have changed since I was just a boy, they were very different although the same basic sandstone pattern still formed the street pattern, it’s an almost unrecognisable pattern to what is seen today. The buildings were far more compacted and whole families were living out of one or two rooms, but we got by none the less. Me and my siblings grew up playing in the street with the other children in our close and our parents helped out other parents when they could. The sense of community was something special that people who didn’t live here didn’t get to see.

In my head I imagine walking hand in hand with my younger self down the streets of Glasgow. I would experience a world of cars and people on their phones. He would experience the smaller homes with a great community spirit. However, both of us would experience the tenements. As I look back on those times now, as an elderly man, I see how much society has changed but people still live in Glasgow’s tenements. They may have grown in size and improved in quality, but tenements will also be a key part of Glasgow life.