East End Photographs and Drawings

[Observer]

Great photos Rob heres some I took recently. A question, have you any info on the first photo the building is in Gunthorpe Street.

Gunthorpe Street building

Sandys Row Synagogue

Kings Stores Public house

Wentworth Street with Gunthorpe Street corner on the left

[Observer]

Thee more

Site of Church Passage

White Hart PH With alley leading to Gunthorpe street

Commercial road junction with Whitechurch Lane







all the best

Observer

[George Hutchinson]

Hi Observer

The building at the end of Gunthorpe Street was serving as a homeless womens' shelter in 1888. Some guides - and even documentaries - seem to think that this IS George Yard Buildings!

PHILIP

[Observer]

Hi Philip

Thanks for that, are there any records pertaining to the shelter? I talked briefly to a woman who entered the building as I was taking the Photo, she hadn't a clue as to it's history, it would have been nice to relate to her the information you have just provided. Although going on her accent I don't somehow think she would have overly impressed to be told that she was living in a homeless womens shelter..hehehe

all the best

Observer

[Observer]

Site of George Yard Buildings it stood where the red brick building stands to the left, Wentworth Street can be seen at the top of the road.

all the best

Observer

[Rob Clack]

Hi Observer,

The building was originally called 'Sir George's Dwelling for girls' according to the 1890 Goads Maps. It was a gown factory in the 1930s and a clothing factory in the 1950s and known at those times as 'St Georges Residence'.



Rob

[Observer]

Hi Rob thanks for that, when was your photo taken the building looks quite neglected, I't being used for up market dwelling houses at the moment?

all the best

Observer

[George Hutchinson]

Rob will no doubt tell you himself, but it was probably 1990 when he took the shot above. Indeed, amazing to see how different and improved it is today. Nowhere near as different as the Durward Street Board School, however.

PHILIP

[Rob Clack]

It was around around the 1990 mark, give or take a year. I didn't date my photos then which is a shame, never mind.

This is the entrance, again around the same time but not the same day.



Rob

[Observer]

Thanks for that Chaps

all the best

Observer

[John Bennett]

Just a few that were lost in the great crash, all of Brick Lane.

The Brewery undergoing new building in 1975 (this is where the Vibe Bar is now)


This one including the Frying Pan when it was still a pub, 1989.


And these two showing the street (1990) before it got jazzed up a few years later. Check out the ramshackle shopfronts even then. Oh, those were the days....




Sorry about the quality, photos of photos.

[m_w_r]

Hi,

From Gordon Winter's A Cockney Camera:

"A Whitechapel pub in the 1870s. Thomson and Smith did not record the name of the pub where their picture was taken, but mention that though it was in the centre of the Whitechapel Road, it had not entirely lost its rural character: 'There are still tables and benches placed outside, as if to entice Londoners to sit and enjoy country air, though they are no longer planted on the green sward but on the pavement stone'. The man on the right, with a hook on his left arm, lost the hand in an accident at the Whitechapel coal wharves. Before the accident he had earned a comfortable living as a coal porter, but was having difficulty in providing for himself and his mother when the photograph was taken."



Regards,

Mark

[George Hutchinson]

Hi Mark. That's my favourite East End image. At one point, we were considering putting it in TLoJtRTaN as a quintessential gin palace photograph. You'll obviously know the chap with the hook was known as 'Hooky Alf'.

PHILIP

[Stephen Thomas]

Dwellings in a railway arch in Limehouse.

Must have been noisy when the trains went over.

[m_w_r]

You'll obviously know the chap with the hook was known as 'Hooky Alf'.

Hi Philip -

Actually I didn't know that. I hadn't seen the photograph before I picked up the book second-hand last week. I don't suppose there is any way to tell which pub it was?...

Mark