Olympic Games take the bricks out of Brick Lane pic: Adelle Kalakouti
An online petition to stop road resurfacing work on Brick Lane has been signed by over 150 people, and will be presented to Tower Hamlets Council at a meeting on Monday evening.
As reported at the time, the famous curry district is due for a face-lift as part of preparations for this year’s Olympics. Residents, however, feel that replacing the cobbles with tarmac will rob Brick Lane of its famous history.
Bethnal Green resident Georgia Warren, 25, who works in digital communications, started an online petition against the face-lift. “I had read about it and it generated a lot of talk among people I knew. I think it’s outrageous. The council are ruining the street by doing this.”
Warren has been promoting the petition via Twitter and hopes to get the council to “reconsider and stop” the planned work. “There is a planning board meeting tomorrow and I will be submitting the petition to them.”
“I cannot believe the council think this is a good thing for the borough. It’s disgusting they did this without consulting the residents.”
SAVE BRICK LANE!
What are these people talking about?!
Do they really “feel that replacing the cobbles with tarmac will rob Brick Lane of its famous history”?
Since when do modern concrete “cobbles”, which were only laid a few years ago, represent the Lane’s “famous history”? Brick Lane gets its name from the fact that bricks for building housing used to be made there – nothing to do with modern concrete “cobbles” on the road surface.
It was a bad decision to lay the faux “cobbles” in the first place. It probably cost a million quid and they were lifted by Thames Water within weeks and have never been flat since, and consequently have been a noisy trip hazard ever since. Good riddance to them.
I lived on Brick Lane from ’00 to ’06,when those bricks went down (about 8 years(sic?) & there was nothing wrong with them for about 5 minutes,til the utilities(water,gas,electric,cable)they all had a go! They dug them up repeatedly & repeatedly never putting them back properly & they just got worse & worse!! WHY,WHY,WHY? IT’S JUST A WASTE OF MONEY,why invest all that money,then not look after it
The bricks look good and adds character to the street. No need to do away with them for the sake of a two-week sports event.
I’m sorry but this feels very weird. It’s like people newish to the area have decided to defend its unique nature by picking on something that’s only been there as long as they have.
The real scandals (the bricks cost a fortune and were badly laid/then dug up/ the tarmac replacement seems to be the council yet again spending money on Brick Lane because half the councillors are involved in restaurants there) have been overlooked in favour of something (literally) surface deep.
Of course Brick Lane isn’t named after a road surface, anymore than Petticoat Lane was once lined with woman’s underwear. Originally called Whitechapel Lane, it became Brick Lane when brick and tile manufacturers began to use its brick earth deposits, back in the 15th century, then its key row as a high street for successive immigrant communities really put it on the London map.
Not accepting everything we’re given (especially by LBTH) is good, but not engaging with the story of a place you process to love is pants – or perhaps petticoats.
Elsewhere in the East End bulldozers have recently demolished a Jewish maternity home and are moving in on the London Wool and Fruit Exchange: corner shops owners are being priced out of streets they have traded in for decades by a sudden influx of designer shops slumming it.
The real campaigns against East End ‘regeneration’ run far deeper than some cosmetic cobbles.