Before the Brick Lane area became "cool and arty ": buildings undemolished till later that year (see my photo from October 1973)..... and devoid of the life of its Sunday market, the area looked even more desolate. Brick Lane itself is at the T-junction in the distance.
#273 on Explore on Saturday, March 14, 2009
Adventures of KM&G-Morris, drewleavy, and 94 other people added this photo to their favorites.
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JB photographer
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JB photographer 51 months ago | reply
Indeed Fuller St is not there - and built across - now!
grepnold 45 months ago | reply
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Seventies London, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
Barry Craig 43 months ago | reply
They did maintain some element of Fuller st. The housing development that now sits there contains a street called 'Fullers close'
roll the dice 42 months ago | reply
great shot
flipr.uno 41 months ago | reply
Hi, I'm an admin for a group called London Rain, and we'd love to have this added to the group!
flipr.uno 41 months ago | reply
www.flickr.com/photos/edrabbit/galleries/72157623103181304
could do something similar with this one!
Stickleback2 41 months ago | reply
I have an interest in the area, your image fascinating.
jasonpfinch 34 months ago | reply
God that b&w one of Cheshire Street in the 70s takes me back. Trips through the outskirts of Central London in the car with my dad driving.
London Market Fan 32 months ago | reply
When tourists visit this area of London nowadays with tails of Jack the Ripper and fog lined victorian slums they are now confronted [and perhaps rightly] with a very different, gentrified area. The 1973 b&w shot really shows how until quite recently this area of London [despite the best efforts of the luftwaffe in WW2] really was an appalling place to live and work with old slum buildings and warehouses. God knows what it really was like in Jack's day! It is important that youngsters of today recognise that despite the economic downturn and hard times our lives are considerably better than previous generations who had to endure street scenes like the B&W one on a daily basis.
I still visit the market but for me it has lost its purity in recent years, but I suppose with gentrification comes popularity and fashion!
JB photographer 32 months ago | reply
Hard to argue with that analysis..... and then there were the Krays just down the Vallance Road... and, though it had largely gone by the 1970s, the health-hazardous smog. Small wonder so many people were only too happy to move to Essex or Milton Keynes. But those who did also acknowledged that they missed something in the old Bethnal Green/Whitechapel/Shoreditch areas they had left behind. (Of course B&W always looks worse to modern eyes: but see the livelier colour photos just months later on a busy market Sunday for a truer slice of contemporary life).
Jelltex 31 months ago | reply
This is fantastic in shiny mono! Wonderful.
JB photographer 28 months ago | reply
For a 1960s A-Z detailed streetmap of docklands & other parts of (inner) East London, see:
alistair79 28 months ago | reply
incredible shot - a glimpse of a now long forgotten east endthanks for sharing
fraser donachie 22 months ago | reply
... excellent ...
Lit Up* 22 months ago | reply
If you guys are interested in reading about the area check out a book called "Journey Through A Small Planet" by Emanuel Litvinoff - he describes life in Fuller Street (the street to the right) and the surrounding area, in the thirties. The book starts quite memorably: "I grew up on Fuller street, which exists, if at all, only in the pages of this book."
JB photographer 21 months ago | reply
Thank you for the book ref. Will check it out. It definitely did exist, packed with occupants and life, once.
fast eddie 42 21 months ago | reply
Very nicely captured & a fine social documentary image.
Forestalx 18 months ago | reply
Where is the people?
JB photographer 18 months ago | reply
It was all pretty dire and deserted back then - except for the Sunday market. Unlike the area now!
Andy Worthington 8 months ago | reply
Wow!