In 1998, one of Britain's most famous monuments, the Angel of the North, was erected.
But 10 years before, Leeds was offered its very own 'angel' which would have stood at twice the height of Anthony Gormley's 20-metre high iron sculpture which now towers over Gateshead, near Newcastle.
In 1986, a then-unknown Gormley won a competition to build a colossal brick man which would have been installed in the Holbeck Triangle, a triangular patch of wasteland between three viaducts.
The 40-metre high statue, which would have greeted passenger coming out of Leeds Train Station, would have been hollow with an entrance in one of the heels. Visitors would have been able to ascend steps to the head where they could look across the city from tiny windows in each of the brick man's ears.
Alas, the people of Leeds and Leeds City Council weren't ready for it.
And its cost – £600,000 in 1988 – sat uneasily with the tight budget Leeds City Council was then working with.
Following a poll in the Yorkshire Evening Post – 800 for but more than 2,000 against – then council leader Georgie Mudie said: "Their common sense contrasts sharply with the airy-fairy views of celebrities who don't live within 100 miles of the city."
Permission to erect the redbrick monolith was denied.
Mudie told BBC Radio Leeds 21 years later: "People needed the help and I thought at the time it was a luxury and the wrong priority for the times.
"In the 80s we had Thatcher, we had industries, engineering, clothing, all disappearing. Those were the priorities. The brick man didn't fit with the priorities.
"In the 90s we might have had enough resources to take a different decision."
You can see Gormley's maquette (scale model) for the statue that never was at Leeds Art Gallery.
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