One year on from the Grenfell Tower tragedy, the 24-storey North Kensington block of flats – now covered in protective plastic inscribed with the words ‘Forever In Our Hearts’ – and other public buildings were illuminated in green. It was just one of many ways that people all […]
When the Travel Bookshop opened its doors in Blenheim Crescent in 1981, Notting Hill was on the cusp of change. For much of the 20th century this West London neighbourhood was the place many people lived if all other accommodation options had failed. But now bedsits were being […]
If you aren’t going for a meal at the World’s End pub or are visiting the nearby Tudor fort, there’s not much of a reason to want to visit riverside Tilbury. Corrugated iron warehouses, stacked containers, parked cars and towering cranes dominate the landscape, but there is little […]
Lincoln Park in Chicago is a great place to relax on a sunny day. Bigger than New York’s Central Park, it boasts ornate gardens, open fields, ponds, zoo (free, but with a decent array of animals including lions and tigers) and beaches dotted along the edge of Michigan […]
In 1893 America and the world came to Chicago. An incredible 27 million people – nearly half the country’s population at time – visited for celebration of four centuries of progress since Christopher Columbus landed in this continent. The World’s Fair, as it became known, put the city […]
Anyone working near French Market in Chicago is spoiled for choice when it comes to sizing up lunch options. The 30 or so food stalls under one roof serve up everything from Vietnamese noodle soup to Italian smoked-meat sandwiches. It’s a gastronomical dream. Established in 2009 next to […]
People have long come to London to enjoy its many attractions, but for some in the 1920s and 30s it wasn’t tourism that brought them here. Visitors travelled from across Europe and America to see Bermondsey Council’s pioneering work in providing residents with decent homes in pleasant surroundings. […]
‘Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas’. The Canvey Island amusement arcade may have borrowed its name from the popular Nevada gambling resort, but there didn’t seem to be many parallels between the two. In the United States people come in their droves to watch lavish live shows, but at […]
Gentrification has for several decades followed a familiar pattern. It starts when “artists move into an area with cheap housing and studio space, then developers follow – and longstanding communities are forced out,” the Guardian reported. “Little thought is given to the people who have lived there for […]
For the Daily Mail in 1901 Dorset Street was “the Worst Street” in London.” The notorious stretch in Spitalfields was somewhere that “boasts a murder on average once a month, of a murder in every house, and one house at least, a murder in every room,” it wrote. […]
Past In The Present 