Ten years ago today the Olympic Park started to be opened up to the public in legacy mode. On Friday 26th July the Anniversary Games were launched in the stadium, a first chance for paid spectators to get back inside. On Saturday 27th July they opened a smidgeon more, inviting the community inside the Copper Box and opening up footpath links to Hackney Wick and Westfield. [48 photos]
Then on Monday 29th July Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park opened to the public. Not much of it, just a wetland slice in the northern half of the park where the Timber Lodge cafe is, but a tasty morsel all the same. Looking back now it seems amazing that we were confined to so small an area and that digger-based landscapery was continuing all around. Flicking through the photos I took at the time it all looks so pristine - identifiably the same park we have now but as yet unsoftened by unruly plantlife and heavy public usage. [48 more photos]
It took until Easter the following year for the southern half to open up, a massive increase in roamable space and a significant knitting together for the Lower Lea Valley. Now here we are in 2023 and it all seems terribly familiar, at least for those of us fortunate enough to live round here. But QEOP still isn't finished yet, in particular many of the surrounding construction projects, which means it must be time for yet another of my "What's new in the Olympic Park?" posts. Starting at the northern end. [16 recent photos]
Tennis and Hockey Centre: Still being used for actual tennis and actual hockey. Last weekend all sorts of young stick-carrying types converged on the bright blue hockey pitch for games with actual spectators (although I suspect they were only other players waiting for their match). Also the PA was pumping out music so loud you could hear it half a mile away, and not even very good music at that. Northwall Road: Still redundant, and now littered with concrete blocks to prevent wheeled anti-social types enjoying it too much. Unexpectedly there are plans to transform the length of the road into "a green accessible space for local people", and tenders are currently out for a consultant to "develop concept designs for a rewilding project including community event and consultation." Velodrome: Don't forget you can go inside, use the cafe and watch the bikes. Chobham Manor: The northeasternmost residential neighbourhood is now finished, which it wasn't this time last year, and there's already a tangible community feel. The newest bit is full of attractive pointy townhouses, so less dense than it could be, but they sell for about £900,000 so you'd be better off in one of the flats.
Here East: The big boxy technology campus is a bit quieter now BT Sport's moved out. They got taken over by Warner Brothers who relocated the surviving employees to Chiswick earlier this year before the lease ran out. Loughborough, Staffordshire and Teesside universities have not followed suit. East Wick: The northwesternmost residential neighbourhood is part complete, specifically the nucleus of bricky flats nearer to the canal. The most recent opening is Copper Street, because every young community needs a coffee/brunch/wine/beer space selling Moretti for a fiver. Meanwhile a strip along the western edge of the actual park is now fenced off so another 400 flats can be built, and the scrappy grass beyond that will eventually be 400 more. North Park: I haven't seen any kingfishers for over a year. I've not been looking so hard though. London Blossom Garden: An increasingly dead squib, Covid-tribute-wise, even for the few weeks when the blossom's out. One of the 33 trees is definitely dead. Much busier with slugs than people.
Copper Box: They've finished mending the mirrored letters. During lockdown I feared the dazzling RUN would never re-emerge. Hackney Bridge: The big sheds by the canal bridge have been ramping up the seating quotient recently, first covering over part of the inner courtyard for all weather nibbling and most recently spreading parasoled tables across the canalside wastes to boost sipping space. At weekends a retro clothes stall and a German bread stall turn up to complement the permanent coffee hole, pet shop and fancy cakery. Sweetwater: The westernmost residential neighbourhood remains entirely unbuilt, and will remain tumbleweed for a while yet. The road connection to the Monier Road bridge ditto. Stadium Island: As promised, a new fence by the blue bridge can be used to seal off the towpath and keep it open during major stadium events, hurrah. Intriguingly they've still had to add temporary fencing recently, suggesting the solution doesn't quite work.
East Bank: The stripe of riverbank Boris nicknamed Olympicopolis is nearing initial completion. UAL's College of Fashion is the biggest building and will open first, indeed it's just applied for an entertainments licence. The V&A's space-invader shaped Museum is now fully clad. Sadlers Wells' ridged roof is almost finished. The BBC concert space looks like it'll be last across the finishing line. Athletics Meet: The Olympic Anniversary tends to be when the big athletics competitions return to the stadium, and last Sunday it was the final Diamond League of the season, the blandly-named London Athletics Meet. It was lovely to see families pouring towards the stadium again, much like 2012, because these days the mobbing crowds tend to be beerier Hammers types. Orbit: The ginormous red tower failed as a must-see viewpoint, but it's possible to charge more for abseiling and corkscrew sliding so they do. Coppermaker Square: Westfield worked out a long time back that flats were worth more than car parks, hence their southwest corner is now a buttress of apartments ideal for those who fancy squandering £2500 a month for a one-bedder in return for the chance to "seamlessly integrate wellness into your everyday life".
UCL: The really big change over the last year has been the opening of UCL's new East campus on twin sites between the Orbit and the railway. One Pool Street is the taller of the two, a stack of multidisciplinary research labs and studios topped off by 500 student flats. The Student Union shop on the ground floor opens on weekdays in termtime and appears to sell mostly soft drinks. Across the river is the shorter chunkier Marshgate building with lots more labs, a refectory, library and an 'Institute of Making'. All yours for £9250 a year (plus accommodation). Pudding Mill Allotments: Very much thriving this summer. It took a while. View Tube: This came first, before anything else, and amazingly still has queues out of the door if you turn up at the right moment. Just before ABBA Voyage starts seems to be one of those moments. An upstairs roof terrace is now available. Bike hire still happens. The newest opening in the yellow containers is a plant shop, though more for people with diddy flats than people with gardens. ABBA Voyage: And still they come in their ironic dresses and retrowear, from the home counties and beyond, friends whose hen parties were 40 years ago, wafting across unfamiliar building sites to enjoy the amazing avatars in the temporary theatre. They'll relocate it one day and build flats, it's in the lease, but for now Pudding Mill is a Summer Night City all year round.
Ten years on, it's amazing that an annual report on Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park still has so much to include. It's even more amazing that in ten years' time they still won't have finished building all the new flats, so lengthy are the construction schedules hereabouts, so expect these annual reports to go on and on. [16 recent photos]
