The Littlewoods building has been a feature of life in Liverpool for generations.
Long the home of thousands of jobs, in recent years the building has fallen into disrepair and its future was put in further jeopardy after a fire in 2019.
Now, the building is largely empty, though new plans could soon see it take on new life as a film and TV hub.
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It is sometimes hard to believe the building was once the headquarters of one of Britain's biggest companies and provided jobs for people across the city through the Football Pools.
But when it was first built on Edge Lane, the Littlewoods Building was central to Liverpool's economy.
Completed in 1938 to act as the head office for Littlewoods, the building's huge layout and distinctive Art Deco style made it an instant landmark in the city.
At the time, jobs at the company were highly sought after.
John and Cecil Moores, who owned Littlewoods, garnered a reputation for genuinely caring for their workforce, ensuring that they were paid the highest wage in Liverpool and organising mass employee away days to seaside resorts.
It wasn't long before its giant factory floors found a very different use.
When war broke out in 1939, the government ordered the building be used to help Britain's military effort, with Halifax Bombers and barrage balloons among the material constructed by workers there.
In the offices above the factory, workers in the governments' postal censorship department worked sifting through mail for anything deemed a threat to Britain's war effort.
After the war, the building once again became the centre of the Littlewoods business.
Across a huge floor, employees working on the iconic Football Pools sorted through huge volumes of mail to keep the operation running.
Pictures from the time show desks teeming with people running the huge operation, which at one point made Littlewoods the biggest family-owned business in Britain.
Automation and a change in the structure of the business would later cause the use of the Littlewoods Building to decline, with the building being completely emptied by 2003.
Since then, it has largely been left untouched and was at one point threatened with demolition.
A fire in 2019 gutted parts of its roof, raising further fears for the building's future but it was later confirmed that the building would survive.
There are now hopes that the building could one day host Twickenham Studios as part of a larger production hub in the city, raising the prospect that once again the Littlewoods Building could become a hive of activity and a key part of life in Liverpool.
T he ECHO has launched a new 56-page nostalgia supplement in print. It's packed with photos from the recent past and the not-so-recent, from shopping, fashion and music to the Albert Dock – plus an elephant on parade in Woolton. You can order a copy here.
