Decline and Regeneration
The Diamond shopping centre suffered from a lack of investment and substantial decline in its environment throughout the 1960s and 1970s and was in need of extensive renovation and reconstruction. Part of this reconstruction led to the building of a large new branch library in the late 1970s. Meanwhile the estate's other shopping area near Rathcoole Secondary School was declared derelict and demolished. Following an extensive fire and a period of dereliction, the reconstructed Alpha Cinema became the East Way Social Club, a loyalist members only working men's club.
Those who take the time to view Belfast from its surrounding hills can never fail to identify Rathcoole's location as it is home to one of the most prominent and distinctive features of the Greater Belfast skyline, at the estate's centre are four high rise apartment blocks that rise from an otherwise low level landscape to mark the northern-most reaches of outer Belfast in the same way that the giant Samson and Goliath cranes of the old shipyard characterize the landscape of the east of the city.
Read more about this topic: Rathcoole (Newtownabbey)
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