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Liverpool: Looking Out To Sea

Peter Marlow details a raw and intimate portrait of the struggling city of Liverpool during the 1980s

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Scavenger on his way home with a bag full of copper wire to weigh in at a local scrap yard. Bidston Moss tip, Birkenhead, Liverpool, England. April, 1985. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Tony and Marie, unemployed, in their children's bedroom. Tower Hill, Kirkby, Liverpool, England. October, 1985. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Netherley, East Liverpool, England. 1985. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Steve and Paul after an acupuncture session, driving through the city. Liverpool, England. December, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Fans celebrate Ian Rush scoring his second goal in the Liverpool V Everton FA Cup Final, Yates Wine Lodge. Liverpool, England. May, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea The first of four tower blocks to be demolished. Tower Hill, Kirkby, Liverpool, England. May, 1982. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Street party in Anfield during the Liverpool-Everton FA Cup Final. Liverpool, England. May, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Walking home down Mount Pleasant. Liverpool, England. November 1987. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Abandoned flats, Tuffins Corner, Netherley. Liverpool, England. December, 1985. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Scavenging for copper wire in Bidston Moss, Birkenhead. Liverpool, England. November, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea 7am outside Hamilton Square Station in Birkenhead. Liverpool, England. November 5, 1985. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Woodside ferry terminal, rebuilt with the help of an EEC grant. Liverpool, England. December, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea The Builders, punk band, rehearsing upstairs at Centre 63. Tower Hill, Kirkby, Liverpool, England. November, 1985. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Goodison Park, watching Everton. Liverpool, England. October, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Smoking heroin in a derelict house in Walton. Liverpool, England. December, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea Burnt-out children's playground in Childwall Valley. Liverpool, England. December, 1985. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea In The Cop watching Liverpool FC. Liverpool, England. April, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

Peter Marlow | Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea A street off Scotland Road. Liverpool, England. September, 1986. © Peter Marlow | Magnum Photos

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On assignment in Liverpool in the early 1980s, photojournalist Peter Marlow bore witness to the enormity of the devastation afflicting inner cities. He knew that what he had seen could not be covered in a single magazine story and so he returned to the city many times over subsequent years.

Liverpool, with its long maritime history, was a city built at the hub of the Empire. Amid the new housing, the shopping precincts, the demolition sites and the wasteland; among the glue-sniffers, football crowds, elderly and young, black and white, he found a vitality and an instinct for survival. But he saw the city in decline, isolated like an island surrounded by the dreams of a Thatcherite nation. Liverpool: Looking Out to Sea forms one of the fiercest social documents of an inner city in Britain, and becomes one of the strongest indictments of an era.