Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Give My Regards to Broad Street



Short cine film of a drivers-eye view of the trip from Dalston Junction to the Broad Street branch of the old Liverpool Street Station. This must date from the mid-70s, when the edge of the City below this track was still a Dickensian cityscape of veneer companies, furniture workshops, ironmongers, the Spitalfields Fruit and Veg market, meths drinkers and slums. Quite a lot of these 'features' were still in existence when we lived in the area, though the market had moved further east and Broad Street had vanished with the building of the then new Bishopsgate complex. The redeveloped Liverpool Street station is as modern and shiny as the rest of the City, but you can see it in all its former decaying Victorian glory in this Flickr group.

In the film you get a couple of glimpses of the spire of St Leonards, Shoreditch and the distant Nat West Tower which, seen from above, is in the shape of the bank's logo. But you knew that didn't you?

3 comments:

ally. said...

I most certainly did not know that. is it really? ta for this. just right to cheer a soul stuck north and just about to get a bus to b&q
x

TIW said...

I had to double check on Google maps, but yes - it is!

Affer said...

I've been gagging to get this in: last week saw the anniversary of the opening of the UK's first public toilet for women - 158 year's ago.

It was miles from Broad Street.....

(sorry)