As Manchester landmarks go, this fruit stall might not have the majesty of The Midland or the ambition of Beetham Tower, but it's still earned a place in the hearts of Oxford Road's inhabitants.
So many people took exception to the threat of its removal across social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter that it earned a stay of execution.
As the InsidetheM60 blog reported it was an embarrassing retreat by Manchester Metropolitan University over its bid to clean up Oxford Road and force local traders to "fit in with the aesthetics" of the area.
Stall owner Nick (Banana) told me he'd previously known nothing about social media, being 'anti-Facebook and at a loss to fathom twitter' but staff member Alex had encouraged him:
"It felt like it took on a life of its own from quite early on.
We posted the objection and my response and the next minute people were so outraged that they wanted to know who to contact and before we could raise a finger the information was supplied by another outraged Facebooker and so it went - the runaway freedom train."I set up the online petition because I felt that petitions were the thing that you did and again they took it and ran and ran - there are 2300+ signatures now and many comments too, people took hours over some responses.
"Facebook members, emails to MMU and signatures mounted up and under the weight of opinion MMU U-turned and so starts a new era of 'glasnost' - long live the fruit lovers!"
An MMU spokesman told the Manchester Evening News; "On reflection we believe this is the best decision for everyone concerned."
