For years it was York’s Aladdin’s Cave, where residents went to browse for a bargain amongst the bric a brac.
But now most of it has been reduced to rubble as work continues on a new development behind its famous facade.
This is all that’s left of the Banana Warehouse on Piccadilly.
Our pictures by YorkMix photographer Richard McDougall show the majority of the old building has gone.
The famous facade is staying, to be incorporated into a 168-bedroom hotel that is being built next to the recently opened 143-room Hampton by Hilton hotel.
The Banana Warehouse was one of the first buildings to be built on Piccadilly in 1925.
It was built for FT Burley, wholesale fruit merchants, in 1925 – a time when the banana would have been considered almost impossibly exotic by York locals.
Barges delivered green bananas along the River Foss to the back of the building. Transferred to special warm ripening rooms, they were soon ready to eat and kept in refrigerated storage until sold.
The legendary Dave Dee took it over in 1994 as a secondhand shop like no other. It was filled to the rafters with furniture, bric-a-brac and the occasional priceless antique.
That closed in 2016 as preparations for the new development began.
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