East End Photographs and Drawings

[AdamWalsh]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dphp6ymaSo

This was my view from The White Hart pub window on Whitechapel Road, New Years Eve 2010. Alone with a pint, watching the world go by whilst sitting in one of my favourite east-end pubs - what could be better?

[The_Martian2]

No one seems to have mentioned the High Street 2012 project. No less than 100 buildings in different parts of the East End will be restored to their former glory in time for the Olympics 2012. The public realm will also be improved and street clutter removed.

Here´s the article:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_9146000/9146511.stm

Before:
Restored buildings on Whitechapel High Street:


After:





If only all of the East End (or ideally the whole of London) would get this treatment!

[AdamWalsh]

Interesting about the redevelopment - wonder if that was related to The Ten Bells recent paintjob?

[sgh]

A few more photo conversions

Here's a few more East End photo's I've been messing with.

1. The original b&w photo of a backyard scene of a man hammering scrap metal.
2. Coloured version of the above.
3. Neath Place- Brady Street 1913 - converted d2n
4. My rough idea of how the first person (with a lamp) might have seen/found
Eddowes in Mitre Sq.
The photo is Mitre Sq (Leonard Matters I think), the figures added in by me.

Best
Steve

[Andrew Firth]

Very nice work there Steve! Excellent stuff.

Not posted a photomontage for a while, so here's one I've done in preparation for my next book. The Wentworth Dwellings on Goulston Street, as seen on 31st December 2010. The Happy Days restaurant may be closed, but the old stairway that we all know has magically reappeared and is open to any passing graffito artist!



All the best
Andrew

[sgh]

Thank you Andrew!
You've done a grand job with this Wentworth dwellings montage , as indeed the many photo's/montages you have posted in the past - especially your night shots, so inspirational - keep 'em coming.

Only last night I drove within a few hundred yards of Whitechapel coming from the Mile End area and heading back north to the motorway so I was damned that I didn't have time to stop and take some night shots.

Good luck with the new book.

Best
Steve

[The Grave Maurice]

Gee, I love this thread.

TM2: I assume the powers-that-be realise that they've got about 16 months to accomplish all that work. Good luck to 'em.

Steve: Those photos are extremely good. Thanks very much.

Andrew: I hope that a certain Chelsea supporter is still reading these threads. He would greatly appreciate your work.

[Lechmere]

The Goulston Street picture reminds me of a major issue about the graffiti.
As I understand it, the visibility of the graffiti from the street was given as a reason for its removal. It was described as being on the door jamb (by Warren anyway) – the area painted black in the picture. However in 1888 I believe the black bit only went up four feet to the height of a dado rail, and above that the door jamb was painted white. That means the graffiti was written in the black bit at a height of less than four feet. However the door jamb is quite narrow. The full width of a brick and the short end of a brick together.
Even with letters being only three quarters of an inch high, is it credible that the whole message was written in such a narrow space – on five lines?
I think this suggests that it was written inside the recess at the foot of the stairs as Swanson implied. Which means it would barely have been legible from the street, particularly as the writing was so small. I also suspect the whole of the door jamb was painted black and only the inside recess wall had black paint up to the height of four feet. I wonder if whatever paint may be there still can be scraped off to see what coats lie beneath?

[Andrew Firth]

Lechmere,

Plus, don't forget, there were cellar recesses in 1888 (as revealed on these boards by Neil Bell, aka Monty), so the entrance would have been significantly different to my montage. The visibility of the chalk message, and indeed the torn piece of Eddowes' apron is called into question when you consider that anyone passing the entrance to the dwellings would be passing by several feet from the actual doorway.

All the best
Andrew

[Lechmere]

Ah yes, a sort of porch or verandah like frontage? I was looking the other day. Would I be right in saying the damaged wall at the right hand corner and I think the different tarmac or flooring surface along the front of the building are traces of this?

[Andrew Firth]

Ah yes, a sort of porch or verandah like frontage? I was looking the other day. Would I be right in saying the damaged wall at the right hand corner and I think the different tarmac or flooring surface along the front of the building are traces of this?

Absolutely, the different surfaced floor, and the irregularly coloured southern corner of the Wentworth Dwellings building do suggest (as Neil Bell mentioned) that the Goulston Street side was fronted by cellar recesses, probably four feet in depth from the pavement to the building itself.

Andrew

[Lechmere]

Are these thought to be sunked windows to either side of the doors, those glass skylight things flush with the street or little hut things or some sort above the street level. In old photos I can't see any evidence of structures in front of the facing wall.

[Andrew Firth]

By way of illustration, an approximate view of the cellar recess areas at the Wentworth Dwellings...



All the best
Andrew

[Lechmere]

Where they sunken areas in the pavement? I pressume there were no shops on the ground floor at all

[Lechmere]

I have an idea that this is a cellar recess - but they usually have small walls and/or iron spiked railings in front of them, I don't remember seeing these features in old photos. I'm going to have a snoop to see if I can find any local examples.