trumans

i was born in the brick lane area. I am a cockney. My parents ran a pub in the area. My dad used to tell (tall) tales about his relationship with the krays, it was never a case of saying how wonderful they were, just the fact that they were the local crime lords and to run a business in the area you had to deal with them, (but they were always kind to their mum).
I have few memories of the area (no surprises there – I barely have memories of last week! All I can say is lucky I never did drugs). But one of them is of the brewery, the smell of it and the dray horses bringing the barrels of beer to my dad’s pub. I loved those horses, wasn’t too keen on the smell of horseshit though.
(oddly many years before I returned to the area I visited he who doesn’t like to be mentioned, also known as joel, who had in an odd twist of fate moved into a flat on the road that my parents had their pub. While standing on his balcony I could see the way I went to school. It was a strange sensation to know that I crossed that bridge when this was the first time in 30 years or so, that I had been in the area and that I had never seen the bridge from that angle…)

Now I am back in the area I spend a lot of time in brick lane. The brewery is still there. It no longer makes beer (although in the various clubs and bars that are dotted around its grounds it sure sells a lot) but it has been broken down into various units that now help to give the area part of its charm. There is a mix of shops, watering hole and offices in the old buildings now. The chimney still stands proud dominating the local skyline, which in its own way is as awesome as the hawksmoor christchurch.



this is quaker street. it runs at 90 degrees from brick lane. if you were to turn around from where i was standing when i took this you would see the famous coffee@.






Even in the last few years the area is changing amazingly.
The brewery seems to stay and remain.

Grey eagle road cuts through part of the brewery. On one side the brewery is being used. On the other side it is still and impressive building but it is a junked mess. For a period of time it was one of the scariest buildings I had ever seen. The metal doors of the yard were wide open and the yard within was empty. You could see the empty stairwells that would take you into what used to be a busy working environment.
Why did this empty building scare me?
The entrance never seemed to be breached; no one went in there, no one fly tipped in there. It remained quiet, it remained clean and it remained foreboding.
(see children that’s what happens when you drink too much coffee, your imagination goes wild…..)



these are various views of grey eagle road at night.




Now it seems the local drug users and prostitutes have started using it. So it remains scary, albeit for a different reason. (and in a pyschogeographer type way it shows the disparities that can exist in london: here is this building being used by the “dregs” of society but it is surrounded by the affluent living in their loft conversions, drinking expensive beers, and talking about their media or finance deal they nailed that day. While some of these people live in a plush building called “jack’s place” (tasteful) beneath their windows are the spiritual descendants of the victims of jack the ripper still working the streets.

this area of london prett much sums up all that is good about the place and all that is bad about it.