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  #81  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2011, 10:32 PM
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PART FIVE: MODERN MARTYRS

Deptford: Marlowe Country



























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  #82  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2011, 10:34 PM
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XX - Stephen Lawrence

In 1993 Stephen Lawrence, a promising young student with ambitions to become an architect, was stabled to death in a racist attack in south east London.

The failure of the police to prosecute anyone successfully for the murder attracted a huge amount of criticism. Stephen Lawrence’s parents and many others argued that the police had been shamefully slow to take a crime against a young black man seriously.

In 1999, an inquiry by Sir William MacPherson found that the original police investigation ‘was marred by a combination of professional incompetence, institutional racism and a failure of leadership by senior officers.’

Stephen Lawrence’s parents wanted him to be remembered as ‘a young man who had a future’. In this spirit, a school for architecture was built in his memory in Deptford, an old dockyard town a few miles west of the neighbourhood where he was murdered.

The centrepiece of the building was a glass front by artist Chris Ofili, which brings the building alive with a rippling, organic pattern.






Sadly, the violence hadn’t ended. In February 2008 eight panes of the centre’s glass, each worth £15,000, were smashed by vandals.

Deptford is being steadily gentrified, and one day crime will almost certainly be as rare here as it is in London’s more well-heeled suburbs. For now, though, the centre’s bunker-like metal facade and its spiked fencing are as much a testament to a fear of crime in this part of London as it is to the future of its young citizens.



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  #83  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2011, 10:35 PM
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Stockwell: This Way to Heaven


















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  #84  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2011, 10:36 PM
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XXI - Jean Charles de Menezes

Stockwell: one time home to the English poet, Edward Thomas; the Dutch painter, Vincent van Gogh and the Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes, who was shot in the head seven times by police marksmen at the local tube station on the 22nd July 2005.

De Menezes was shot because he was mistakenly identified as a terrorist. When he boarded a tube train on the way to work, the police made a judgement that killing him was the only way to protect the public.

A later inquiry by the Independent Police Complaints Commission expressed ‘grave concerns about the effectiveness of the police response’. The Metropolitan Police was also successfully prosecuted under health and safety legislation. Suggestions made by the police in the immediate aftermath of the shooting that de Menezes had ignored police instructions were refuted by both the IPCC inquiry and a later public inquiry.

However, after seven years in power, the politicians who had commissioned the MacPherson report on Stephen Lawrence’s death were far more sanguine about the shooting of de Menezes. They strenuously defended the head of the Metropolitan Police and the shoot to kill policy that had led to de Menezes’ death.

Back in Stockwell, the first attempt to create a permanent memorial for de Menezes failed. At the centre of the neighbourhood is a mural that forms part of its war memorial (pictured below). While restoring the mural in the autumn of 2005, artist Brian Barnes added de Menezes’ face to a pantheon of former Stockwell residents, including van Gogh and Roger More. Some locals objected to the new image of de Menezes, however, and the Council duly sent in its ‘Gimebusters’ team to remove it.



However, an informal shrine was established next to the tube station entrance, and acted as a focus for the family’s campaign for justice.









The previous pictures were taken at the end of 2008 – since then, the shrine has been replaced by a permanent mosaic. Whilst it is a moving tribute to Jean Charles de Menezes, I have to say I miss some of the spontaneous invective of the earlier memorial.


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  #85  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2011, 10:37 PM
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Southall: A Stroll Through The Streets






























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  #86  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2011, 10:38 PM
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XXII - Blair Peach

London has always needed immigrants, ever since it was founded by immigrants – for trade, for cheap labour, for expert labour, and for many centuries simply to sustain the city’s population. However, this has not always been readily accepted by the English: as early as 1185 one chronicler wrote: ‘All sorts of men crowd there from every country under the heavens. Each brings its own vices and its own customs to the city.’

In the 1970s and 1980s, race relations reached one of the lowest points in London’s history. In April 1979, during a general election campaign, the far-right National Front held a meeting in the centre of Southall, which then - as now - was home to a large Sikh community.

The meeting was marked by violent anti-fascist demonstrations in which Blair Peach, a teacher from the East End of London, was killed. A coroner’s inquest recorded a verdict of death by misadventure, but an internal police report written in 1979 and released in 2010 said, ‘it can reasonably be concluded that a police officer struck the fatal blow’. It went on to say that there was not enough evidence to charge anyone, partly because of ‘the attitude and untruthfulness of some of the officers involved’.

Before his funeral, 8,000 Sikhs visited Blair Peach’s open coffin, which lay in state in a local cinema; 10,000 people attended his funeral in the East End.

Today, a primary school near where Blair Peach died bears his name. An even better memorial to him is the wider neighbourhood, which exhibits all the characteristics of a safe, healthy multicultural town. Shops sell row upon row of colourful clothing, which help to brighten up a dowdy mixture of fading Victorian brick and 1960s concrete.

London’s complicated relationship with immigration remains, however. Nowadays, established Punjabi Sikhs in Southall discuss how their neighbourhood is changing with a new influx of refugees from Somalia and Afghanistan. Some now see the troubled times of the '80s as a golden age. As one poster on a local forum puts it:

'Even in 1997, Southall had undergone serious changes and, sadly, was far removed from the positive and joyful 1980s Punjabis' Southall which I remember in minute detail. Those days were great. These days are more ... suspicious, it seems to me. And Southall has less of that auspicious glow I remember it had, when EVERYONE got together.. Even the energy in the air seemed to change - it became superficial, loud and self-conscious and not rootsman. I don't understand how this pseudo-"bhangra" and Bollywood rubbish became so influential around the mid-90s.'


Last edited by Bedhead; Jan 16, 2011 at 7:54 PM.
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  #87  
Old Posted Jan 6, 2011, 10:47 PM
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This thread keeps on giving!
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  #88  
Old Posted Jan 7, 2011, 9:41 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Bedhead View Post
[CENTER]Southall: A Stroll Through The Streets




Are you sure this is London???
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  #89  
Old Posted Jan 10, 2011, 10:50 PM
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Yes - Southall is different from the average London neighbourhood - if such a thing exists - about 70% of London's population is white, but only about 10% of Southall's population is white.

It's part of a fairly well-repeated pattern of immigration in London - London's East End used to be dominated by French protestant (Huguenot) immigrants in the 17th/18th centuries. There are few signs of their community left in the East End now (one of their churches has famously become first a synagogue and then a mosque), but an estimated 25% of Londoners today have Huguenot ancestors.
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  #90  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2011, 3:25 AM
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Quote:
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Yes - Southall is different from the average London neighbourhood - if such a thing exists - about 70% of London's population is white, but only about 10% of Southall's population is white.

It's part of a fairly well-repeated pattern of immigration in London - London's East End used to be dominated by French protestant (Huguenot) immigrants in the 17th/18th centuries. There are few signs of their community left in the East End now (one of their churches has famously become first a synagogue and then a mosque), but an estimated 25% of Londoners today have Huguenot ancestors.
Thats interesting, London is 'whiter' than Birmingham @ 66%

Another great update BTW!
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  #91  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2011, 4:17 AM
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Ive got a question that you might know the answer to. Ive tried looking up historic preservation in london and cant really find much about it strangely. Do they have laws or ordinances protecting the cities old buildings or districts like NYC and other American cities? I'm sure they do but just would like to know more about it.
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  #92  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2011, 5:21 PM
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Thanks Sage & ColDayMan - your continued interest is much appreciated!

Quote:
Originally Posted by photolitherland
Ive got a question that you might know the answer to. I've tried looking up historic preservation in london and cant really find much about it strangely. Do they have laws or ordinances protecting the cities old buildings or districts like NYC and other American cities? I'm sure they do but just would like to know more about it.
Yes, there are a whole bunch of rules. Buildings in the UK can be 'listed' - which means owners have to get permission from the local authorities before they make any changes. If interest groups object, the decision can go all the way up to central government or even to the courts. There are three grades: Grade I, Grade II* and Grade II. Older buildings are more likely to be Grade I, while buildings less than 30 years old are hardly ever listed. The main difference between the grades is that I and II* buildings can qualify for state assistance for restoration. On this page, St Paul's, Deptford is an example of a Grade I listed building, Stockwell bus garage is Grade II* listed and Southall Water Tower (now apartments) is Grade II listed.

Larger areas can be designated as conservation areas - here, even owners of buildings that are not listed have to apply for permission to do things that might change the character of an area like changing the cladding on a building or chopping down a mature tree.

Another set of rules also preserves sightlines in London - so for example, no one is allowed to build a tall building that might pop up behind this view of St Paul's Cathedral. That's why the Leadenhall building is such an odd shape - if it was a regular rectangle it would impinge on St Paul's sightlines.

Finally, London has four world heritage sites - the Tower of London, Westminster, Kew Gardens and Greenwich.

Seems strange that such a chaotically built city should have so many rules - I guess the British don't like planning things, but we do like preserving them!

More info here.
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  #93  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2011, 6:12 PM
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More great shot, thanks.

Coincidentally the name of the fictional town in the book I'm reading is Deptford. The town is not really fictional though, it's based on Thamesville, Ontario. I wonder if this is where the author got the name?
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  #94  
Old Posted Jan 14, 2011, 7:08 PM
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Well I'm glad to hear that london has such strict guidelines to protect it's history. It seems like Europe as a whole takes great strides to protect it's historic structures. I guess after ww2 So much was lost that people realized it was very important to save what's left. Here in America after ww2 we could have cared less about protecting our history. By the 1980s most of our cities and even small towns had decimated downtowns that might have as well been bombed out by the Luftwaffe.
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Old Posted Jan 14, 2011, 7:08 PM
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Quote:
Coincidentally the name of the fictional town in the book I'm reading is Deptford. The town is not really fictional though, it's based on Thamesville, Ontario. I wonder if this is where the author got the name?
Could be - I don't think there are any other Deptfords of any significance in the UK, and it's quite neat to chose a town that was built by the Thames as a substitute for Thamesville...

Quote:
Well I'm glad to hear that london has such strict guidelines to protect it's history. It seems like Europe as a whole takes great strides to protect it's historic structures. I guess after ww2 So much was lost that people realized it was very important to save what's left. Here in America after ww2 we could have cared less about protecting our history. By the 1980s most of our cities and even small towns had decimated downtowns that might have as well been bombed out by the Luftwaffe.
Yes, I think the listing system really began in the UK because the authorities had to decide what to restore and what to give up on after WW2. However, a lot of historic structures were destroyed here in the 50s and 60s, too. It was only really in the 80s that the whole process really got going properly.

Last edited by Bedhead; Jan 16, 2011 at 7:56 PM.
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  #96  
Old Posted Jan 15, 2011, 9:10 AM
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damn man, I just realized you were adding photos to this thread. I've been missing out this whole time! great stuff - looking forward to more!
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  #97  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2011, 2:35 AM
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great updates.

where's this from?



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Originally Posted by Bedhead View Post


Yes, I think the listing system really began in the UK because the authorities had to decide what to restore and what to give up on after WW2. However, a lot of historic structures were destroyed here in the 50s and 60s, too. It was only really in the 80s that the whole process really got going properly.
RIP especially Euston Arch. and dozens of other rail stations.

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  #98  
Old Posted Jan 25, 2011, 9:48 AM
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^^^ Thanks - yes, Euston was hit hard. It's interior also took a pounding:

Before -


RIBAhttp://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...=175008&page=4


Victorian Londonhttp://www.victorianlondon.org/transport/euston2.gif

After -


http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._concourse.jpgChirsO, Wiki

The shot of Canary Wharf was taken from Borthwick Street (with the blue marker on the map) - that plot is being redeveloped, I guess into residential units, and I was able to squeeze my lens through a gap in the fence.


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Sekkle - thanks! - Next update due in March!

EDIT - Just googled that Borthwick St redevelopment. It seems those arches were part of a Wharf that had been (controversially) partially demolished, and was due to be deathmasked into a new block housing a restaurant, gallery and offices. Apparently, it was due to be finished in 2009 but got put on hold with the recession.
http://paynesandborthwick.co.uk/pdf/PB_commercial.pdf

http://www.thamespath.org.uk/2008/05...redevelopment/

Last edited by Bedhead; Mar 1, 2011 at 7:21 PM.
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  #99  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2011, 7:25 PM
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Time for another update - a couple of bits of filler to tide us over:


Last edited by Bedhead; Mar 21, 2015 at 8:42 PM.
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  #100  
Old Posted Mar 1, 2011, 7:26 PM
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