Frederick Selby was an architect who lived at 48 Queen Square in the 1970s, and contributed an entry into a Strathbungo Society competition for a monument to Alexander “Greek” Thomson in 1975.
So who was he? Well, not Fred Selby, for starters.
He was a tutor at Glasgow School of Art, and they provide us with a biography of the man.
The shop at 72 Nithsdale Road has traded as Lunar, the cocktail bar, since September 2022. It had previously operated from 2018 as Niven’s by Cafe Source , named in recognition of its motoring history, and prior to that Kowloons, The Salisbury Restaurant and Cookie.
During its first such incarnation as Cookie, it still retained the original signage, H C Niven & Co, est 1929, Motor Engineers. The motor engineers tag is still visible above the door.
Cookie, with the original Niven sinage
So who was Bert Niven?
It is remarkable that the Victorian vision for Strathbungo has survived almost untouched. Barely a single building has been lost, but that may be about to change. The house at 47 Nithsdale Street is disintegrating before our eyes, and may not be with us much longer. Sadly it appears this may be deliberate on the part of the building’s owner. So what is the story of this building?
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