Development and Decay: Commercial Road in Stepney and Limehouse, a set on Flickr.
As part of my ongoing project to photograph the whole of London by bike, this is the 59th photo set I have posted, and the last of three photo sets recording a journey I made along Commercial Road, in the East End, one hot and sunny day in July (see here and here). It was something of a revelation to me, as, although I know parts of the East End, I was largely unfamiliar with this area, and cycling the whole of the road from Aldgate to the junction near Canary Wharf, as well as making diversions into the back streets, helped bring to life this vibrant and historically fascinating part of town that I have since revisited on several occasions.
This whole part of the city — rather frayed around the edges, and with an uneasy mix of wealth and poverty, featuring the white working class and Asian immigrants on the one hand, and bankers on the other — is primarily subject to drastic changes because of its proximity to the City and Canary Wharf, and is, in a very real sense, up against the full force of international money, with developers intent on exploiting any land they can get their hands on to build new housing aimed at foreign investors — a bubble of exploitation, with investors charged too much for properties that they, in turn, sell or rent for too much to London residents.
This, of course, is a familiar story across the whole of London, but the nearer you get to the epicentres of the international banking mafia (the City and Canary Wharf), the more problematical it becomes for local people, and for anyone who isn’t earning well in excess of the average UK income — around £26,000 a year. Those on the median income — around £14,000 a year — or amongst the 50 percent of the working population who earn less than £14,000 a year are even more disadvantaged, and may well find themselves priced out of London altogether, unless this artificially inflated bubble is somehow brought to an end.
I hope you enjoy this, the penultimate set of photos from that particular sunny day in summer, with the derelict buildings I encountered, the new housing developments, the ailing Victorian heritage (especially the Limehouse Library), and the glimpses of the wonderful Limehouse Cut, the canal that is regularly on my mind since I first visited it in summer.
Ironically, as my journey came to an end, the battery in my camera ran out, and the only place I could think of to buy a new one, so that I could carry on taking photographs without having to go home and recharge the existing battery, was Canary Wharf. Photos of that surreal shopping expedition will be along soon, but for now, come with me on a journey along the western end of Commercial Road — in Shadwell, Stepney and Limehouse.
Andy Worthington is the author of The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America’s Illegal Prison (published by Pluto Press, distributed by Macmillan in the US, and available from Amazon — click on the following for the US and the UK) and of two other books: Stonehenge: Celebration and Subversion and The Battle of the Beanfield. To receive new articles in your inbox, please subscribe to my RSS feed — and I can also be found on Facebook, Twitter, Digg, Flickr (my photos) and YouTube. Also see my definitive Guantánamo prisoner list, updated in April 2012, “The Complete Guantánamo Files,” a 70-part, million-word series drawing on files released by WikiLeaks in April 2011, and details about the documentary film, “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” (co-directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, and available on DVD here — or here for the US). Also see my definitive Guantánamo habeas list and the chronological list of all my articles, and please also consider joining the new “Close Guantánamo campaign,” and, if you appreciate my work, feel free to make a donation.
