The sites as of this week ....

[ohearga]

I spent the last couple of days walking around Whitechapel, Spitalfields and Shoreditch. The Mitre Square spot is still recognisable, although unmarked. It was amusing to me to see people walking through the square, sitting on the benches and having no idea whatsoever (or not caring?) of what happened there not so very long ago. It remains a very atmospheric spot, to me. Interestingly, after years of change on the Miller's Court spot, from what I could tell it probably now exists in the wide open atrium of a post new office building. Because of all of the change it is very hard to pinpoint anything really, but I suspect the Miller's Court spot is towards the middle of the eastern part of the atrium. There is so much building work going on at the Buck's Row site that it was virtually impossible for me to figure that one out ... I'll go back a bit later. The Annie Chapman site is particularly interesting ... bizarrely enough, I had an eye exam today in a room at an opticians that have its address as 27 Hanbury Street, but either that exam room is on the murder site or no more than a metre or two away. Pretty eerie. Finally, the Stride spot is well neglected, I don't think many of the tours go there (or to the Nichols one either) for the distance, but it is sombre and somehow particularly sad ... as all of them are in fairness.

[seanr]

The Martha Tabram site is the most similar to as it was at the time, I think. Wentworth Dwellings still stands and remains an atmospheric building to my eye. The archway where the piece of apron was found is now part of the Happy Days fish and chip shop.

The Bucks Row site is completely disrupted by the Cross Rail work, I think. I don't think the actual spot is currently reachable.

The original 27 Hanbury Street is completely gone, the extended Truman's Brewery with trendy shops on the side was where the houses used to be. 27 Hanbury Street stood where part of the interior car park is now.

What was Berners Street is unrecognisable from the time, but remains narrow and bleak.

I used to work across the road from Mitre Square and have sat their to eat lunch on more than one occasion, fully aware of the past of the spot, but the past is the past. If you stay there for any amount of time, you're sure to see a Ripper tour turn up with a group of tourists. Seems like they are there quite often.

Dorset Street and Millers Court have indeed completely disappeared into a new building on the site. The location can only really be identified by finding White's Row, which ran adjacent to Dorset Street and still stands. Intriguingly, Dorset Street present but unmarked on a historic map of the local at the top of White's Row in front of the old Women's Refuge. As though the local council wish to forget the place ever existed.

Old Castle Street formerly Castle Alley, where Alice MacKenzie met her sad end is still a narrow alley and I think the red brick building may be what still stands of the bath house that stood there at the time?

These sites are worth visiting for those interested in the case, if only to really get a sense of how close geographically all of these places are.

[Robert]

I know what you're going to tell us, ohearga : your appointment was with Oco at #28 but you wandered into #27 by mistake.

[ohearga]

Ha!

Actually, while the Wentworth building is indeed remaining, that's not where Martha was killed ... that was a few blocks away in the George's Yard building on Gunthorpe Street, which at its lower end is indeed a mean street, although the GY building is no longer there. The Wentworth building has changed a lot ... the staircase that the opening once led to is gone, and the ground floor completely open retail. One last thing about Hanbury Street, on the western side of the Truman Brewery building, new retail units are springing up in the space, and the optician that I went to occupies No. 27.

[seanr]

Yeah, I knew Martha was not killed at Wentworth Buildings... my paragraph continued on in an obscure way. I meant to refer to buildings/ sites which remain somewhat as they were at the time and Wentworth Buildings sprung immediately to mind.

I know Martha was killed on what is now Gunthorpe Street, which remains a cobbled street and some of the tours claim the building there was George Yard buildings where Martha was killed, but I'm not so sure.
I've definitely overheard Ripper tours telling tourists total nonsense (never taken one myself) so I don't trust them as a source.

At the top of that road is The White Hart pub, which has a blackboard inside describing how Ripper suspect George Chapman used to live at the pub. He lived there a few years after Martha was killed. Small world.

[ohearga]

No worries ... no, I'd say the GY building is long gone, there is just a school or something there, kind of like Berners Street oddly enough.