Scores of people gathered outside Glasgow's Royal Concert Hall to launch a campaign to stop plans to demolish the steps.
They gathered at the top of Buchanan Street to protest against last week's decision by the city council to demolish the steps and replace them with a new multi-millions pound atrium and entrance way for Buchanan Galleries.
The demonstration was organised by the grassroots Save Our Steps group, which has already gathered thousands of signatures on a petition supporting the preservation of the Buchanan Street landmark.
They showed off signs and chanted slogans such as "Save our steps," "People before profit", and "GCC shame on you."
Heather McEwen, 57, is a librarian who has lived in Glasgow for 30 years.
She said: "I just think that it's such a great place for the city. I often come here on my lunch break and it's meant to be so you can come and look out down through the city.
"When I heard about the protest, I had to come. I hope the council overturn their decision."
Bill Beckett from the city centre, wore a white mask at the protest, was giving out signs to fellow campaigners.
He said: "I hope they stop such a hideous plan. It's a concern that they're taking away the chance for us to campaign and protest in an area that we've had for so many years."
Glasgow City Council say the plans will help maintain Glasgow's reputation as the UK's second shopping destination after London.
The £390 million shopping centre expansion will see the erection of an ''entrance atrium'' to the concert hall and mall on Buchanan Street, and the car park will be demolished and replaced.
But campaigners say there are already empty retail spaces in Glasgow's city centre, while other areas of the city are in greater need of regeneration.
Some campaigners who back Scottish independence also held up political messages, targeting the Labour-controlled council.
One of the protest organisers, Michael Skribbles, said the campaign group has already handed a 14,000 signature petition into the council, which was "totally ignored".
He said the group has launched a new petition and plans to occupy the steps every Saturday until the council "takes notice".
"You only have to go a few streets away to find dozens and dozens of empty shops, so one thing we don't need is more shops," he said.
"There are so many empty units in Glasgow, money could be spent renovating the streets that those units are on."
He insisted the protest was mainly "cultural" rather than political, adding: "For many people who are here today, they are not even Yes voters, they are people who use this (the steps) for their lunch everyday or to meet people.
"These steps have been here for decades and Glasgow City Council is doing all it can to take them away."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article