Six years ago, in a 125th anniversary series, I visited the sites of Jack the Ripper's five murders. They form an intriguing, if gruesome, cross-section of the East End. Yesterday I went back to see what's changed, and how they've been holding out against the developers. If you'd rather read about the murders, click on the titles to go back and read the old stuff.
"So infamous were Jack's murders that Buck's Row got a name change, becoming Durward Street in 1892. That's still its name, although the street itself is vastly altered. Its cottages survived until the 1970s but were then demolished. The only surviving building from Victorian times is the four-storey Board School overlooking the station, opposite which is the Whitechapel Sports Centre. And then there's the latest demolition agent, currently barring all through traffic, which is Crossrail." [photo 2013]
Crossrail are still here, still blocking the street, indeed it's been impossible to walk past the site of Mary Ann's murder for years. Back in 2013 I thought they'd be gone by 2017, but no, trucks still rumble in, hard-hatted men still operate the barriers and construction workers still swarm the surrounding streets because Whitechapel is one of the two most-behind-schedule Crossrail stations. When everything's eventually unwrapped, I don't expect much of pre-purple mid-Durward Street to have survived. The closest the public can get for now is inside the station, on the lesser used footbridge linking the Overground platforms, but eventually a massive new concourse will be sweeping through.
What we find on Durward Street today is the 'temporary' entrance to the station, opened four years ago, with its stack of free papers out front, a steady stream of scurrying passengers and a man in a Santa hat playing Jingle Bells on a trumpet to minimal acclaim. On the opposite side of the obstruction is the back entrance to Swanlea School, normally a quiet cul-de-sac, but I accidentally managed to turn up at chucking-out time so it was awkwardly crowded. A few children dribbled out, chatting and smiling, but the main presence was parents and grandparents, waiting in far larger numbers than you'd expect outside a secondary school. Security is still high on the agenda hereabouts.
"In 1970 an entire block on one side of Hanbury Street was demolished and swallowed up by the Truman Brewery. The site of Annie Chapman's death is now an indoor car park, six days of the week, hidden behind a long brick wall, topped by a hangar-stepped roof which extends the length of an entire block. Part of the frontage is taken up by modern boutiques, but the section where 29 stood is almost featureless, except for a locked fire exit beneath a row of square windows." [photo 2013]
Hanbury Street hasn't changed much in six years, still at the heart of Spitalfields, a naan's throw from Brick Lane. The two streets cross a few doors down, where tourists mingle with locals and traders, and the hipster vibe is strong. Every shade of woolly hat seems to be represented, even the ill-advised, and I spotted one brave soul striding through flaunting a braided admiral's jacket. The pole announcing parking restrictions is covered with stickers in various languages. A fresh layer of graffiti adorns the brickwork. Through the windows the ground floor car park includes several vans and an ambulance, and appears to be an astonishing waste of space.
Across the road it's not the 1970s, it's still the 18th century. Hanbury Street is one of Spitalfields' glorious Georgian survivors, a long terrace of unexpectedly prime real estate and occasionally non-vertical brickwork. Some houses retain painted shutters and potentially residential occupants. Others are Sichuan restaurants, religious centres and niche retail, catering for all things temporal and spiritual. There's a duplex office for rent above one of them, if you'd like a room with a murderous view while you work. Of all five sites, this is the one you're most likely to have walked past without realising.
"At number 40 was the International Working Men's Educational Club, beside which was a gated yard, nine feet wide, then two cottages occupied by cigarette makers and tailors, then a corner shop. The club became a shop a few years later, then in 1909 it and several neighbouring buildings were demolished to make way for a school. That building survives as Harry Gosling Primary, a very typical three-storey LCC school, which means (somewhat inappropriately) that the precise murder site lies somewhere in the playground." [photo 2013]
Berner Street, since renamed Henriques Street, has become the least loved of the Ripper's locational quintet. Little traffic turns off the busy Commercial Road into this half-cobbled sidestreet, many of whose buildings have yet to be touched by the property whirlwind that's touched down close by. The old warehouse at the top end stands out, not just because it's painted orangey-brown but because original doors for hoisted delivery have survived at first floor level. Its shutters are closed, various windows are boarded up and the suspicion must be that it risks being transformed into a bland cuboid of flats... which is precisely what's happened nextdoor since I was last here. The short parade of shops I noted in 2013 has given up - the local flats no longer need a travel agent and a tailor - but the primary school still thrives, the sole focus of playful endeavour hereabouts.
"Mitre Square, a gaslit quadrangle on the edge of the City, is today a shadow of its former self. Every building that used to stand around its perimeter has been knocked down, the last major redevelopment being in 1980, and today only the cobbles remain. Even these have been moved and realigned, but it's possible that some are originals that the Ripper fled across. The site of Catherine's murder is in the southern corner, beneath the tree, on the kerb close to the flower bed." [photo 2013]
In 2019 even the last few cobbles have gone. Mitre Square has been a building site for several of the past few years, or at least a holding pen for the supplies needed to rebuild an entire block closer to Aldgate. One Creechurch Place is as contemporarily monolithic as a 17-storey City office needs to be these days, and has an Illy coffee outlet out back because that's a 21st century priority. The footprint of Mitre Square remains as a uniformly-tiled grey space, its former flower beds replaced by a couple of relocated grassy patches. These have concrete rims for perching on when the weather's better, and some dwarf shrubs that magically flower in December though not in an uplifting way.
New to the Square is a sculpted obelisk called Climb by artist Juliana Cerqueira Leite. She filled a wooden column with clay then dug fitfully up the centre, casting the negative space in plaster to reveal her work. It is not a comment on past historical proclivities. The rear gates to Sir John Cass's Foundation school occasionally open, for staff cars rather than pupil egress. And the spot where Catherine's bloody body was found appears to be marked by... a small drain cover, which is neither intentional nor appropriate.
"Dorset Street took many years to shed its unsavoury reputation. In 1928 all the houses on the north side were knocked down and in their place rose the London Fruit and Wool Exchange. This Portland stone edifice housed traders selling fruit and veg sourced from countries all around the world, conveyed onwards via fourteen loading bays still visible round the back. The slums on the southern side of the street lasted much longer, but in 1971 were replaced by the White's Row multi-storey car park." [photo 2013]
Go away for six years and some places change completely and utterly. The Fruit and Wool Exchange has been hollowed out, much to the despair of the GentleAuthor, leaving a thin facade in front of an all-too modern office development. Its many trading rooms have been replaced by a stack of brightly lit offices, atop giant receptions where suited security guards silently glower. Its fine central staircases were ripped out to create a square outdoor atrium, featureless other than a few metal strips I almost slipped on and a pair of very corporate-looking Christmas trees. Most of the Divisible Retail Space remains unlet. Nothing about the place sparks joy.
As for White's RowCar Park, that's made way for a smaller block and what architects excitedly describe as 'public realm'. In this case it's a terrace for smoking on, a large patch of greenery screening the ventilation for whatever's in the basement, and some properly ostentatious brunch. That spiky glass and zinc pavilion on the corner contains a cafe/restaurant called Crispin, the kind of outlet which offers "rotating guest filters", "low-intervention wines", "three cheese toasties" and "wild boar ragu". The afternoon crowd looked set and cosy at their tiny elevated tables. The journey from murderous slum to prestige business schmoozerama is pretty much complete.
