the Goulston St Graffiti

[The Grave Maurice]

Oh, well that's alright then. I never really suspected him anyway.

[Roy Corduroy]

Lechmere, I am following your progress of photos related to various sites you have posted. Thank you for sharing.

Roy

[caz]

To my knowledge, no one has proposed that Jack wrote the Goulston Street graffiti immediately after the Stride murder and before the Eddowes murder, probably because the idea is ludicrous. But I've almost convinced myself that the idea should be considered for the following reasons.

1. Goulston Street is on the way from the Berner Street location to Mitre Square.

2. Jack may have been enraged at being interrupted by Jews outside a primarily Jewish club during the Stride murder. Perhaps, he hastily chalked some message "blaming the Jews" as a way of venting, not knowing that he would have another chance to kill that night.

3.Presumably, this anger about being interrupted would have been somewhat reduced after the Eddowes murder, making it less likely that he would be preoccupied with Jews and feeling compelled to chalk the message.

I can envision a scenario where, after he kills Eddowes, he returns home. Goulston Street is on the way/near his home so it is no big deal to return to the graffiti. He decides to "sign" his previous message by dropping the piece of apron next to it. Perhaps he means to convey that the Jews are responsible for Eddowes because they interrupted his work with Stride. The blood is on their hands; he is wiping his clean. (Of course, a similar interpretation of the meaning of the graffiti can be made regardless of when he actually wrote it.)

In this scenario, he isn't taking the time to chalk a message after murdering two women with the entire police force buzzing around. He chalked it earlier, when he thought he was done for the night. Dropping the apron during the flight home would take but a second.

I know, still unlikely.

Hi Barnaby, All,

I have only just caught up with this thread and find the above scenario a lot simpler, neater and more logical than many of those involving the coincidence of two separate antisocial individuals (one a serial killer) dirtying the same domestic Jewish doorstep, apparently just for jolly and signifying very little.

I can particularly relate to the idea of a killer so out of step with the rules, and so obsessive about what he's doing, that he thinks he can wash the blood from his own hands (or wipe if we want to be literal about it) and transfer it to Jewish ones simply by dropping his victim's soiled apron piece at their door. And that's whether he chalked the neat little message about Jews and blame or not, and regardless of which was done first. But for me, the use of 'The Jews', collectively, only adds another layer of "don't blame me, they are all in this together, conspiring and provoking me into doing these things".

Also, I can't quite put it down to coincidence that it was half the apron he took, and half he left at the scene, as it too would symbolise this dual responsibility thing going on inside his head. A bit OCD perhaps, a bit evening up the score maybe, trying to make two wrongs equal a right, the animals going in two by two, everything in pairs - double events if you will.

But I think we can do better than that and make this one a treble - if we give Schwartz the benefit of the doubt and believe he heard Stride's killer shout out "Lipski".

It's one heck of a coincidence, isn't it, if one throat-cutting prostitute killer in Berner St that night was invoking the name of a Jewish murderer and seeking to apply it to an entirely blameless Jewish passer-by; a second man had recently thought to chalk a message on Goulston about the Jews collectively being blamed (for something or nothing); and a third man - the Mitre Square throat-cutting prostitute killer - incidentally passed along Goulston and happened to get rid of the most incriminating piece of evidence he could have been carrying, right underneath the second man's work, effectively underlining the notion of the Jews, in one way or another, getting themselves tarred with a murderer's brush.

Why would a single serial killer, with the mentality to see whole groups of people - from prostitutes to the police to the Jews - sharing the responsibility with him for his own actions, not fit the bill here in one fell swoop, without dragging in unknowing outside help, conjured up purely from the imagination?

For those who choose to see Stride's murder as a complex crime, committed for complex reasons by someone other than the ripper, everything else that night will be broke and need fixing before they can fix things their way on Berner Street. For those who think this is arguably the simplest murder, committed by the same simple mind but botched (because that's what happens to everyone in the real world, drunk or sober), it's all there with knobs on, in fine but grotesque working order, with a place for everything and everything in its place.

I have no need to fix anything we've got and I'm far too lazy to want to try. To me it doesn't look broke.

Love,

Caz
X

[Suzi]

Hi all
Just caught up with this too..
Liz and the Berner St palaver doesn't fit somehow- but looking at the the 'big picture' neither does Mary in Miller's Court (apostrophe?).
OK the Half (Yes very OCD Caz!) which was found in G St MAY just may have been left there by Kate- great story but quite unlikely sadly...the most likely course of events of course is that Jacky made his/her way back - if not home well away from the scene of the crime (possibly /probably to join the Oooh Gawd crowd!) and did give the pinny a swift and sharp drop to the right as he passed the opening- probably to mingle with the rest of the detritus therein hoping as he scuttled away it'd be muddled in with the rest of the nastiness that was cluttering the doorway of most doorways in the area- those posh enough to have a 'doorway'.
As to the graffiti- we'll never know- but IMHO it'd been there for a while- for what reason we'll never know either.
Suz

[caz]

Hi Suzi,

But were these dwellings not almost brand spanking new at the time? Would the residents therein not have taken a very natural pride in keeping their doorways reasonably clean and clutter free?

I imagine they would have been quite horrified to find the nastiness of an unfortunate's soiled and bloody pinny grinning evilly up at them.

Which for me could have been precisely the point of a bigoted killer laying his nasty leavings there: "You lot in your posh new homes think you will come out whiter than white after this? Watch this space."

Love,

Caz
X

[lynn cates]

definition by genus and species

Hello Caz.

"It's one heck of a coincidence, isn't it, if one throat-cutting prostitute killer in Berner St that night was invoking the name of a Jewish murderer and seeking to apply it to an entirely blameless Jewish passer-by; a second man had recently thought to chalk a message on Goulston about the Jews collectively being blamed (for something or nothing); and a third man - the Mitre Square throat-cutting prostitute killer - incidentally passed along Goulston and happened to get rid of the most incriminating piece of evidence he could have been carrying, right underneath the second man's work, effectively underlining the notion of the Jews, in one way or another, getting themselves tarred with a murderer's brush."

Good point. I think we have much to agree on here.

Sometimes in defining flora and fauna, we recognise the genus before the species. Hence, if I see an arachnid with 6 eyes--3 sets of dyads--I think, "Ah! Genus Loxosceles. Only later do I attempt to define the species as Reclusa or Rufescens or Laeta, etc.

So, too, with the "Double Event." Same hand? Doubt it. Same motive? Indeed. Same sinister mind in back of it? Yup.

Cheers.
LC

[Lechmere]

I have been looking at Wentworth Model Dwellings to try and understand whether the graffiti would have been visible from the street – either to a passing policeman or a member of the public.
The nature of the basement recesses to the front of the Goulston Street stairwells at 108-19 Wentworth Model Dwellings has a major impact on this.
Where they fenced or covered by grills?
There is a picture from the 1970s that shows fences on either side of the last stairwell at the southern end of the block. By then the ground floor flats on either side of the first three stairwells had been remodelled and turned into commercial premises. I estimate that this happened in the 1920s.

The front range of the buildings along Wentworth Street, on either side of Goulston Street, have the remains of glass brick light wells immediately in front of the shop doorways. These shops are original.
On either side of and around the light well are ornate heavy floor tiles. These where expensive. I suspect the tiles and glass were also added in the 1920s. Most have since been covered over with tarmac that is now crumbling.
[ATTACH][/ATTACH]

[Lechmere]

Here are a few more shots of the recess covering along the front of Wentworth Street.
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We can see the same arrangement from this famous picture of 108-19 Wentworth Model Dwellings, the second stairwell down Goulston Street from Wentworth Street. Remember the shops on either side of the stairwell were originally flats. I suspect the conversion all took place in the 1920s, based on the design of the tiles and the corbels that have been added between each shop.

[Lechmere]

As far as the original shop fronts are concerned, along Wentworth Street, before the glass light well was added I suspect the recess opening was covered by a metal grill. This is an example found near-by on Commercial Street. The recess here is about eight feet deep, similar to that at Wentworth Model Dwellings. The recess would have extended either side of the grill, covered by paving.

There were recesses to the front and the rear of the buildings which mirrored each other.
There is a remnant of the recess at the rear of the Goulston Street building and by good fortune this recess actually relates to 108-19 Wentworth Model Dwellings. It is however too narrow to see much.


This is an example of how railings would have looked. This is the closest approximation I have been able to find, in Jubilee Street in Stepney. The recess is wider and not so deep as it would have been in front of Goulston Street

I have to take some more pictures to show further evidence of what it probably was like – grills or railings?

[Lechmere]

The rear of the eastern Goulston Street block of Wentworth Model Dwellings (the block that contains the 108-19 stairwell) has a storage extension added for the market traders. This extension is actually at the reverse of the last (most southerly) stairwell. In other words behind the last two shops to be converted. These changes took place during the re-modelling of the late 1980s.

At this time the front stairwells were also knocked through and access was provided through new entrances at the first floor level to the rear, via a raised roof garden. This destroyed the ground floor stairwell at 108-19, although the actual, entrance is still there as part of Happy Days Restaurant.
[ATTACH][/ATTACH]

[Lechmere]

An examination of the 1920s corbels on both sides of Goulston Street shows that they are different though similar to the original corbels on Wentworth Street. The Goulston Street corbels were not there when the blocks were originally constructed in 1886-87 as this part of Wentworth Model Dwellings was purely residential.
Wentworth Street original corbel

Goulston Street 1920s corbel

[Lechmere]

A great deal of care was taken in putting decorative architectural features into Wentworth Model Dwellings. Besides the corbels, there was distinctive patterned brickwork and a flower pattern motif that runs around the buildings. Here we can see how this motif has been cut into by the later corbel.

Here we can see how this later shop window was slightly clumsily cut into what was a plane wall. This is likely to have happened as part of the 1920s remodelling.

The wall had been like this, with a distinctive brickwork pattern.

[lynn cates]

good work

Hello Lechmere. You do good work. This makes everything come alive.

Cheers.
LC

[toynbee]

Great detail photos there Lechmere.

Thanks for sharing.

Regards.

[Sally]

Thanks Lechmere

Very Interesting.