By Fiona Green
I have lived in Tottenham Street for 48 years and in celebration of this and as part of our Transition Town initiative I undertook this project to photograph 45 people who live and work in my street.
The street is about 300 yards long with Tottenham Court Road at one end with Cleveland Street with the old Middlesex Hospital site at the other end.
Not everyone wanted to appear in the paper and I respect that, nevertheless the cosmopolitan character of the area show with no less than 15 nationalities represented here.
The Middlesex site concerns and troubles us all because, like the Odeon site in Grafton Way (empty 54 years) this site has been empty for four years.
How much longer do locals have to wait for this space to be regenerated to help our community which was once one we used to depend upon?
How much longer will the beautiful chapel be left to decay in a sea of mud?
The idea for my project came from a trip to East Berlin in 1960 on a teacher delegation – when the Berlin Wall was still in place – everywhere where ordinary men and women were working or making a contribution they were recognised: photos inside hospitals, on building site hoardings, all over.
I am grateful to the Fitzrovia Noir artists who lend their photos from the Middlesex Hospital collection to represent that part of the street, and artist Nancy Fouts who used to live at number 26 for her poster designed for the Fittzrovia Charlotte Street festival of 1973.
The show was generously sponsored by Mike Pentelow and Gaucho restaurant and has appeared at the Coningsby Gallery.
It now shows at both Gig’s fish and chip shop and the Fitzrovia Private Diners’ Club at either end of the street.
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