{"id":483,"date":"2015-07-01T23:45:40","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T23:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/?p=483"},"modified":"2015-07-01T23:45:40","modified_gmt":"2015-07-01T23:45:40","slug":"tales-past-london-now-and-then","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/tales-past-london-now-and-then\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales of the Past: London Now and Then"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Tell me what\u00a0your building’s fa\u00e7ade looks like and\u00a0I’ll\u00a0tell you the era it\u00a0belongs to!”<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s quite a flimsy adaptation of the well-known quote \u201ctell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are\u201d, but I promise to make it work!<\/p>\n

\u2026unless London is just a time capsule which makes us ruminate about its appearance now and then. \u00a0<\/strong>How to spot the changes across generations when this metropolis behaves like a Victorian chameleon preserving the history in the most impeccable way?<\/p>\n

\"Now
Oxford Street c.1903 and 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I would lie if I said I did not enjoy my time in Berlin, this city never sleeps! But I could be called a great deceiver if I hide how much I miss London and the fast living pace in the UK. To drown my nostalgia and cheer up a little bit I was skimming through some random pictures of\u00a0the British capital enjoying\u00a0its famous landmarks and sniffing through some peculiar historical content.<\/p>\n

A canvas illustrating Buckingham Palace caught my attention and lured me into its finesse. The painter did a fine job, but time \u201cfooled\u201d me again making me believe that I am staring at the 2015 Queen\u2019s House. Then I realized that London\u2019s architecture has barely changed since the Victorian Era and being awed by how well it has been preserved.<\/p>\n

\"Now
Buckingham Palace, London, 29 July 1954<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Just add a bit of colour to this picture, replace the 1955 Morris Oxford Series car with the new Mini Cooper 2015, slightly trim down those long skirts and you will create a vivid image of today\u2019s Palace.<\/p>\n

\"Now
Piccadilly Circus in 1953 and 2014<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Piccadilly Circus does not fall short either! The imposing square still remains a mirror of the past surrounded by red double-decker buses and elevated by the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain. Did you know that London buses were\u00a0not always red? Before 1907, different routes had different-coloured buses.<\/p>\n

(The name ‘Piccadilly’ originates from a seventeenth-century frilled collar named piccadil. Roger Baker, a tailor who became rich making piccadils lived in the area.)<\/p>\n

\"Now
Corner of Long Acre and James Street, Covent Garden, in 1930<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Covent Garden has been an open-air market in former times and it has evolved into an exciting district offering a tremendous amount of shops, pubs and restaurants. Once, these narrow streets were worn by galloping horses fighting tooth and nail to carry farmers\u2019 heavy goods. Today, thousands of tourists are crisscrossing the area from the wee morning hours until the dawn comes.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/p>\n

In 1890, Fleet Street was the home to the nation\u2019s newspapers and that great barber, Sweeney Todd. In the present time, it is no longer the house of country\u2019s magazines and journalists, but numerous coffee shops have cannibalized the place overnight.<\/p>\n

As a matter of fact, London is full of pubs associated with artists, writers, and poets. The Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte Street was famous for hosting Dylan Thomas and George Orwell.<\/p>\n

\"Now
This hybrid photo illustrates St Martin-in-the-Fields to the right and the National Gallery pictured in the distance<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/h6>\n

London sets the scene for an incredible journey into the past, so why shouldn\u2019t we play by the rules at least once and embark ourselves on a new adventure?<\/p>\n

Remember those black and white movies where people were gathering in a big parking lot to watch cinema and eat home made popcorn? We can get a rich flavor of the \u201850s and \u201860s by attending the Secret Cinema<\/a><\/strong> in London. The concept is to some extent spicier than what we know and that\u2019s why most people think of it more like a \u201cRussian Roulette\u201d. The movie itself, the location and the time – all these things are up in the air. Consider yourself blindfolded \u2013 now buy the ticket and show up where the organizers tell you. Pick your spot, get a comfy sitting pillow and bring your favourite drink.<\/p>\n

\u2026Speaking of which, I found this great cinematographic execution capturing London in 1927 & 2013<\/a>.<\/p>\n

You can see more of Now and Then pictures of London\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Some facts in the post were taken from:<\/p>\n

–\u00a0London\u2019s Hidden Walks<\/em>\u00a0by Stephan Miller
\n–\u00a0London Book of Lists<\/em>\u00a0by Nick Rennision<\/p>\n

Read this post and other stories on\u00a0Diana\u2019s\u00a0personal blog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Tell me what\u00a0your building’s fa\u00e7ade looks like and\u00a0I’ll\u00a0tell you the era it\u00a0belongs to!” It\u2019s quite a flimsy adaptation of the well-known quote \u201ctell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are\u201d, but I promise to make…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":160,"featured_media":492,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14],"tags":[54,119,334,424,505,608,688],"class_list":["post-483","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-london","tag-architecture","tag-buildings","tag-history","tag-london","tag-now-and-then","tag-secret-cinema","tag-tales-of-the-past"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/160"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=483"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/483\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/492"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=483"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=483"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/international\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=483"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}