For the second part of my stroll through "bits of Bow that didn't exist eight summers ago", I'm crossing the A12 and heading back down the eastern side. There are five more photos, which you can see a bit bigger by clicking on them. And I will of course be ending up somewhere rather famous.
The EastCrossRoute sliced through Bow in the early 1970s, and the community's been trying to join up the two sides ever since. Here in Old Ford is one of the few crossings, a 21st century footbridge designed to make Fish Island a slightly more accessible outpost to reach. It's a simple yet elegant hump, passing through a twisted ring of steel at its highest point, with separate (disregarded) lanes for pedestrians and bikes. To the west there's a grid of terraced houses plus corner shops and kids on bikes, while to the east there's a big yellow warehouse and a converted chapel and industrial bleakness. And viewable from the top, the steady stream of through traffic that created this social chasm in the first place. The first minor battle has been won. [map]
I fear that, one day, everybody in London will live in a tiny compartment on the site of something more interesting. Here's a case in point. This is Wick Lane, until recently a sidelined industrial outpost, before property developers deduced that high-rise living was worth far more than low-profit manufacturing. This pink-based block (on the site of a former dyeworks) was first to arise five years ago, its early residents isolated in the middle of social nowhere. The brochure for 417 Riverside (still available) promised "urban riverside living" (conveniently ignoring the sewer nextdoor) and offered "an attractive and accessible location" (maybe one day, definitely not yet). The neighbouring block appeared last year on the site ofa newspaper ink factory - the end result a blandgrey cuboid. Nah, sooner you than me. [map]
And the upgrade continues. The southern half of FishIsland, the chunk where the streets aren't named after dace, roach or bream, is (very) slowly evolving from grimy backwater to residential bubble. Making stuff is so very 20th century, so all the local jobs and places of employment are gradually shifting elsewhere. Come back in a few years and the JCBs will have moved on, the van hire yard will have disappeared and that boarded-up warehouse will have realised the potential of its residential footprint. Tomorrow's Islanders will be happiest working from home in their broadband-enabled studios, but they'll have to get their cars fixed somewhere else. Pack 'em in, pile 'em high, and erase all the stuff that made the area interesting in the first place. [map]
The northern half of Fish Island retains a little more character. Tower Hamlets recently slapped a conservation area around Dace Road, so this enclave of artist-packed warehouses and old factories (mmm, Percy's peanuts) should survive relatively unscathed. This photo shows the more modern Ironworks building, tightly squeezed into the courtyard of the feature it replaced. It's built right up close to the Greenway, access to which ought to be a simple hop off a balcony, but the site's single gated front entrance forces residents to make an unexpectedly lengthy detour. Expect the BBC or some other international TV company to take over the penthouse suite in three years time, because it's probably the very closest viewpoint to the final stop on my journey. [map]
A short stroll along the Greenway and there it is, the building that's acting as a catalyst for all this change in the surrounding borderlands. The newly-sprung Olympic Stadium is proving to be an irresistible magnet not just for sport but also for investment. There'll even be new homes erected right here, immediately in front of the stadium, come the post-Games legacy phase. As London's population grows, an even greater proportion of us are going to end up living in buildings that didn't exist at the turn of the century. Most of the new architecture I've passed on my walk would have sprung up anyway, but 2012 means that far more will follow in its wake. Olympic ripples are changing my neighbourhood, almost beyond recognition. [map]
[Part 1, up the western side of the A12, was yesterday]
The East Cross Route sliced through Bow in the early 1970s, and the community's been trying to join up the two sides ever since. Here in Old Ford is one of the few crossings, a 21st century footbridge designed to make Fish Island a slightly more accessible outpost to reach. It's a simple yet elegant hump, passing through a twisted ring of steel at its highest point, with separate (disregarded) lanes for pedestrians and bikes. To the west there's a grid of terraced houses plus corner shops and kids on bikes, while to the east there's a big yellow warehouse and a converted chapel and industrial bleakness. And viewable from the top, the steady stream of through traffic that created this social chasm in the first place. The first minor battle has been won. [map]
I fear that, one day, everybody in London will live in a tiny compartment on the site of something more interesting. Here's a case in point. This is Wick Lane, until recently a sidelined industrial outpost, before property developers deduced that high-rise living was worth far more than low-profit manufacturing. This pink-based block (on the site of a former dyeworks) was first to arise five years ago, its early residents isolated in the middle of social nowhere. The brochure for 417 Riverside (still available) promised "urban riverside living" (conveniently ignoring the sewer nextdoor) and offered "an attractive and accessible location" (maybe one day, definitely not yet). The neighbouring block appeared last year on the site of a newspaper ink factory - the end result a bland grey cuboid. Nah, sooner you than me. [map]
And the upgrade continues. The southern half of Fish Island, the chunk where the streets aren't named after dace, roach or bream, is (very) slowly evolving from grimy backwater to residential bubble. Making stuff is so very 20th century, so all the local jobs and places of employment are gradually shifting elsewhere. Come back in a few years and the JCBs will have moved on, the van hire yard will have disappeared and that boarded-up warehouse will have realised the potential of its residential footprint. Tomorrow's Islanders will be happiest working from home in their broadband-enabled studios, but they'll have to get their cars fixed somewhere else. Pack 'em in, pile 'em high, and erase all the stuff that made the area interesting in the first place. [map]
The northern half of Fish Island retains a little more character. Tower Hamlets recently slapped a conservation area around Dace Road, so this enclave of artist-packed warehouses and old factories (mmm, Percy's peanuts) should survive relatively unscathed. This photo shows the more modern Ironworks building, tightly squeezed into the courtyard of the feature it replaced. It's built right up close to the Greenway, access to which ought to be a simple hop off a balcony, but the site's single gated front entrance forces residents to make an unexpectedly lengthy detour. Expect the BBC or some other international TV company to take over the penthouse suite in three years time, because it's probably the very closest viewpoint to the final stop on my journey. [map]
A short stroll along the Greenway and there it is, the building that's acting as a catalyst for all this change in the surrounding borderlands. The newly-sprung Olympic Stadium is proving to be an irresistible magnet not just for sport but also for investment. There'll even be new homes erected right here, immediately in front of the stadium, come the post-Games legacy phase. As London's population grows, an even greater proportion of us are going to end up living in buildings that didn't exist at the turn of the century. Most of the new architecture I've passed on my walk would have sprung up anyway, but 2012 means that far more will follow in its wake. Olympic ripples are changing my neighbourhood, almost beyond recognition. [map]
