Neighbourhood news, features, and comment
Life on the edge, both geographically and socially, is the theme of this book. Colourful examples come from fake antique dealers, dodgy second hand car salesmen, and a variety of villains. Many honest and underpaid workers in the furniture trade, the clothing industry, show business, and restaurants are also included. And a rich mix of …
The Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre, which will be closing in June, was a product of its time and was one of several community advice centres being established across Camden and other inner London boroughs in the 1970s. The opportunity arose as a result of funding provided by the Home Office to tackle inner city problems. This …
Continue reading "The life and changing times of the Fitzrovia Neighbourhood Centre"
Above the Newman Arms pub in Rathbone Street there is a bricked up window with a picture of a young woman. In the painting she can be seen in a nightdress and little cap which partly covers her long red hair. She peers down onto the street below with her bare arms resting against the horizontal …
Continue reading "Must we kiss goodbye to Rathbone Street’s young lady of the night?"
BBC Radio 4 is currently broadcasting a series about Britain's Black past. In the fifth programme, Professor Gretchen Gerzina explores the life of the best-known black person in 18th century Britain, Olaudah Equiano. A former sailor and slave, he was a world traveller who bought his own freedom. Equiano lived at 13 Tottenham Street in …
A room from a First World War troop entertainment building and its opening ceremony is to be recreated this summer to celebrate the 100 years since it first opened on a site in Bloomsbury. "Resurrecting the Shakespeare Hut" will commemorate the lives of the servicemen, and the women who worked at the YMCA Shakespeare Hut, which was built on …
Continue reading "Resurrecting Shakespeare and memories of the First World War in London"
An excavation between Rathbone Place and Newman Street in Fitzrovia has uncovered a number of interesting and unique finds according to an archaeology fieldwork report. The investigation carried out between November 2014 and March 2015 found a series of post-medieval walls, drains and brick-lined pits, constructed on the site in the late 18th century, as well as 19th century …
Continue reading "Excavation reveals post-medieval pits and potential Civil War fort"
From 1966 for the next decade the coolest club in London was the famous Speakeasy located in the modest basement of 48 Margaret Street. As the watering hole of choice for the glitterati of the rock and pop music scene, it was frequented by virtually every musician of note, both British and American, from the …
Continue reading "Speakeasy, where The Who could drink easy, pull easy"
A music festival celebrating the many musicians and composers who have had a connection with Fitzrovia will take place in early June, the first of an annual event say the organisers. The series of performances will take place at a variety of yet-to-be-chosen venues throughout the neighbourhood assisted by an Arts Council of England grant. There …
Continue reading "A Fitzrovia music festival takes to the stage in June 2016"
A guided walk to visit and learn about the history of some of Fitzrovia's famous pubs will take place tonight (Tuesday 23 June 2015) as part of Fitzrovia Festival 2015. Mike Pentelow, editor and features editor of Fitzrovia News, co-author of A Pub Crawl Through History: The Ultimate Boozers’ Who’s Who, and Freedom Pass London: Make the …
Continue reading "Author leads a guided walk of Fitzrovia’s famous pubs"
The southern part of Tottenham Court Road is again undergoing large scale change with redevelopment of the Central Cross building on the west side and on the east side the former Time Out building has now been completely demolished. Another chapter in the story of the road that originally led to Tottenhall Manor House. This was what …
Continue reading "Tottenham Court Road before redevelopment in the 1970s"
A modernist building designed by Richard Seifert & Partners and a neo-Georgian building by Robert Angell & Curtis could be demolished in a redevelopment on Berners Street. Derwent London intend to submit a planning application to Westminster council in April to demolish three buildings and create a single new building. Derwent held an exhibition last …
Continue reading "Richard Seifert design among buildings facing demolition on Berners Street"
By Simon Glyndwr John I read “Our Island Story,” by H E Marshall, when I was about ten years old and began a lifelong love of history and books. Unsurprisingly, history became my best academic subject and within that subject one topic chose me: the First World War (WW1). My interest in WW1 developed whilst …
By News Reporters All that is left of one of the oldest buildings on Goodge Street is a couple of courses of brickwork held up by scaffolding and steel girders. 1-3 Goodge Street was built in 1780 as part of a development undertaken by Francis and William Goodge with the builder and architect Jacob Leroux. The inside …
Continue reading "Important historic building on Goodge Street demolished"
By News Reporters Do you have memories of the the Middlesex Hospital in Fitzrovia that you'd like to share? A doctor and an architect are working together to collect people's stories and memories of the Middlesex Hospital, which stood on Mortimer Street until it was demolished in 2007. Khaldoon Ahmed trained as a doctor at …
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Food in history: forthcoming event at the IHR, University of London (11-13 July 2013) By Sara Pennell In 1660, the cook Robert May published recipes for one of the modish dishes of the day: the grand ‘sallet’ or salad. The Stuart ‘sallet’ was a spectacle, with its carefully arrayed mixture of fresh and preserved elements, and imported commodities (anchovies, ‘Virginia Potato’, almonds) alongside …
Continue reading "Academic appetite for an historical analysis of food"
By News Reporters The house at 22 Cleveland Street has long been known as Charles Dickens first London home but it was not until this weekend -- 143 years after the author's death -- that it finally gained a plaque to publicly identify it. The lack of any notice on the building had caused confusion …
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It's hard to believe if you were to walk out of the Time Out building on Tottenham Court Road you would have seen this narrow street. But up until the mid-1970s that is what you would have found. A few yards off one of London's busiest roads you would have peered into a narrow street …
Continue reading "Tudor Place and the warren of streets of the Gort Estate off Tottenham Court Road"
By Jess Owen In 1810 Simon Bolivar arrived in London as a delegate from the newly established junta of Caracas. Their base was the house of Francisco de Miranda at 58 Grafton Way. Aware of British naval power, the revolutionary government wished to assure the dominant regional powers that they would not upset the 'status …
This street party (pictured) took place in Hanson Street, Fitzrovia, back in May 1945 to celebrate VE Day (the end of the war in Europe). The woman standing on the far right is Hilda Mogilner (whose grandmother Nancy Lazarovitch had run the kosher butcher at number 18 in the street from 1938 to 1941, when …
Continue reading "Remembering VE Day street party in Hanson Street"
By Anna Cullum Walking from the BBC headquarters on Upper Regent Street towards Oxford Circus, your curiosity might be aroused by a small entrance hall recently redecorated with smart marble surrounds and the word ‘Cinema’ embossed on the upper window. The doors are locked and the cinema has been closed to the public for 30 …
Continue reading "Birthplace of British cinema to be restored"
