Olympic snapshots: Olympic Stadium Last Wednesday now seems a very long time ago, but July 2012 is considerably more distant. 367 weeks away to be precise, during which period the bland industrial trading estate in this photo will be resurrected as the world's top athletics stadium. Really, precisely, exactly, here. As you can see, there's an awful lot of work to be done first.
Marshgate Lane runs across the very bottom of this photograph. The road up the centre of the photo is a side-turning about the length of a 200m sprint, ending at a metal fence beneath a raised bank of earth a short distance in front of the City Mill River. At the far end on the right is Arnell House, home since 1988 to the Tyrone Group, specialists in the manufacture and distribution of lace and voile window furnishings. Not for much longer though. Look, here are photographs of the happy smiling (pre-Olympic) staff - whose jobs at the company head office are now more than just threatened, they're doomed. I'm sure the LDA will offer the company money to set up elsewhere, but whether that money will be enough to afford a new showroom even vaguely nearby is another matter. The Mercedes after-sales centre nextdoor has got to shift, as has the adjacent Bywaters 'special waste' depot and all the surrounding warehouses too. It can't be too many months before the compulsory purchase orders start rolling in.
But it was business as usual here when I visited last week. I've wandered up thisroad several times before but last Wednesday afternoon was different - this was no longer the site of a potential Olympic Stadium, it was the real thing. You could tell something had changed because there was one neighbourhood feature I'd never seen before - film crews. Up on the Greenway, the great Victorian sewer that crosses the Lower Lea Valley, two feral kids on BMX bikes asked me if I was looking for 'the filmers'. Beyond the bushes I spotted the media pointing a big black camera at the bleakest industrial landscape they could find, while a second group wandered (tripod in hand) towards the doomed businesses below in search of a choice quote for the evening news. In a second sideroad, adjacent to Forman's salmon-coloured fish-smoking plant, I spotted this big skip adrift on the pavement beneath a long grey warehouse wall. The tower of waste piled up inside was prophetically symbolic of the fate of many of those who currently work down Marshgate Lane.
But in seven years time this very spot will be the most famous location on the planet, beamed live into the homes of billions of people around the world. Relay finishes, high jump finals, world record-breaking performances, wheelchair sprints and medal ceremonies - they'll all be happening within a javelin's throw of this skip. A couple of weeks of inspirational athletic performances surrounded by a golden halo of cheering spectators, right here where they currently distribute net curtains. And, somewhere high up in the sky where grey pylons now dominate, the Olympic flame will shine down a message of hope and friendship across a revitalised East London. Standing last Wednesday in the centre ofthe future Olympic arena I struggled in vain to picture the all-transforming reality that 2012 will bring but, at last, I felt as if anything was possible. This trading estate cul-de-sac is no longer a dead end.
The London Olympics 2012
Last Wednesday now seems a very long time ago, but July 2012 is considerably more distant. 367 weeks away to be precise, during which period the bland industrial trading estate in this photo will be resurrected as the world's top athletics stadium. Really, precisely, exactly, here. As you can see, there's an awful lot of work to be done first.
But it was business as usual here when I visited last week. I've wandered up this road several times before but last Wednesday afternoon was different - this was no longer the site of a potential Olympic Stadium, it was the real thing. You could tell something had changed because there was one neighbourhood feature I'd never seen before - film crews. Up on the Greenway, the great Victorian sewer that crosses the Lower Lea Valley, two feral kids on BMX bikes asked me if I was looking for 'the filmers'. Beyond the bushes I spotted the media pointing a big black camera at the bleakest industrial landscape they could find, while a second group wandered (tripod in hand) towards the doomed businesses below in search of a choice quote for the evening news. In a second sideroad, adjacent to Forman's salmon-coloured fish-smoking plant, I spotted this big skip adrift on the pavement beneath a long grey warehouse wall. The tower of waste piled up inside was prophetically symbolic of the fate of many of those who currently work down Marshgate Lane.
Last Wednesday now seems a very long time ago, but July 2012 is considerably more distant. 367 weeks away to be precise, during which period the bland industrial trading estate in this photo will be resurrected as the world's top athletics stadium. Really, precisely, exactly, 
But it was business as usual here when I visited last week. I've wandered up 