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Developments
Monday, October 17th, 2011 10:45 amAfter months with no apparent progress, the building across the road from our office has rapidly disappeared over the past week – if you go to Google Earth, it’s still there on Bressenden Place, SW1. The office building that juts out over Allington Street, connected to the huge and always empty Trafalgar Travel Agency. Archive those pictures; if you’re like me, even if you were familiar with the area before, it won’t be long before you’re scratching your head trying to remember what used to be there. It’s nearly all gone now and workmen are setting to on the paved area along the road. This is part of the redevelopment of Victoria Underground station, which is actually a block away. The new ticket halls will be under Bressenden Place and Allington Street. The architects’ drawings make them look suitably palatial and it will be possible to get tickets without clogging access to the actual platforms. It will be a fair old mooch underground, mind. I don’t know what will become of the current access on Victoria Street itself.
I mention this simply because I am aware that in the nearly 30 years I have lived in London, large tracts of it have changed beyond recognition, away from the tourist landmarks. I understand, for example, that when they were filming Ashes to Ashes, set in 1980s London, they found it difficult to find authentic locations that hadn’t altered too much in the intervening time and the skyline had to be adjusted with CGI to remove Docklands in its entirety and many of the newer developments in the City. By contrast, when the predecessor show, Life on Mars was filmed, set in 1970s Manchester, unchanged locations abounded; it was largely a question of changing a load of shop signs and street furniture (the fact that parts of Manchester doubled up for 1940s New York in the recent Captain America movie gives you an idea of how little change there has been in much of that city).
Anyway, I recall that there was a period in the mid to late 80s, back when I would spend much of every weekend touring around the West End, that I could literally walk around the corner and find that in the previous week, some developed had emptied out and demolished what had previously been an apparently thriving block of buildings and commenced redevelopment. I was generally at a loss either to remember what had been there a week earlier, despite having clearly walked past it numerous times, or even to recall any signs that it was about to disappear at all. The city has mutated by stealth, underneath the radar. I was walking down Victoria Street the other day thinking to myself that I remembered such and such buildings being built, but at the same time, there was not even the foggiest clue of what they had replaced.
I guess it depends upon what is important to a person. I do know that there used to be a Virgin Megastore where Sainsbury’s now is and I regret the loss of a particularly fine little Italian Café on what is now Cardinal Place and the family run hardware store further down the block. But I can’t remember what they looked like.
And what ever became of the modern art Stag Statue that used to have pride of place in the middle of the overgrown paving on the long since defunct Stag Place (now part of Cardinal Place)? I don’t miss it, you understand; I just wonder where it went. As to Stag Place, well, that’s been redeveloped twice since the statue went. I rather miss the bizarre little amphitheatre where I would occasionally sit to eat my sandwiches in the summer, but the wind-swept square with nothing but a statue and very tall weeds between the paving slabs is hardly missed. I can recreate that feeling by going to Croydon and standing outside the Fairfield Hall.
I mention this simply because I am aware that in the nearly 30 years I have lived in London, large tracts of it have changed beyond recognition, away from the tourist landmarks. I understand, for example, that when they were filming Ashes to Ashes, set in 1980s London, they found it difficult to find authentic locations that hadn’t altered too much in the intervening time and the skyline had to be adjusted with CGI to remove Docklands in its entirety and many of the newer developments in the City. By contrast, when the predecessor show, Life on Mars was filmed, set in 1970s Manchester, unchanged locations abounded; it was largely a question of changing a load of shop signs and street furniture (the fact that parts of Manchester doubled up for 1940s New York in the recent Captain America movie gives you an idea of how little change there has been in much of that city).
Anyway, I recall that there was a period in the mid to late 80s, back when I would spend much of every weekend touring around the West End, that I could literally walk around the corner and find that in the previous week, some developed had emptied out and demolished what had previously been an apparently thriving block of buildings and commenced redevelopment. I was generally at a loss either to remember what had been there a week earlier, despite having clearly walked past it numerous times, or even to recall any signs that it was about to disappear at all. The city has mutated by stealth, underneath the radar. I was walking down Victoria Street the other day thinking to myself that I remembered such and such buildings being built, but at the same time, there was not even the foggiest clue of what they had replaced.
I guess it depends upon what is important to a person. I do know that there used to be a Virgin Megastore where Sainsbury’s now is and I regret the loss of a particularly fine little Italian Café on what is now Cardinal Place and the family run hardware store further down the block. But I can’t remember what they looked like.
And what ever became of the modern art Stag Statue that used to have pride of place in the middle of the overgrown paving on the long since defunct Stag Place (now part of Cardinal Place)? I don’t miss it, you understand; I just wonder where it went. As to Stag Place, well, that’s been redeveloped twice since the statue went. I rather miss the bizarre little amphitheatre where I would occasionally sit to eat my sandwiches in the summer, but the wind-swept square with nothing but a statue and very tall weeds between the paving slabs is hardly missed. I can recreate that feeling by going to Croydon and standing outside the Fairfield Hall.