21st century London. Need some tips
 

Hi,

I'm thinking about doing some more travel in London, but since it's been a while since I spent much more than 24 hours in the city, I've been looking at guidebooks. It turns out I'm not interested in most of what they're writing about. I mean, I can find the museums myself, but I'm actually interested in experiencing more of contemporary London -- maybe immigrant neighborhoods, newer architecture, maybe a well-regarded avant-garde theater space or---- ???

The thing is, I don't really know where to find what I'm looking for, or maybe it doesn't exist. Maybe you could help if I told you what I'm not interested in:

Nothing to do with the royal family
No historic pubs
No shopping
No gardens
No WW2 monuments
No dangerous, hostile or prostitution neighborhoods.

I'm not really a sports fan, but I'm thinking maybe I should go to a sports event, or a sports pub. I'm also thinking I'd like to see that huge Hindu temple that's on the outskirts of town. Is it interesting to walk around strongly ethnic neighborhoods? Is there some cutting edge area of London?

One more question: Is the Speaker's Corner in Hyde Park just now certifiable lunatics, or do sometimes people who really are sane to rant against the system up on the platform? I'm thinking if it's the latter, I'd like to go.

Hope this isn't just babbling and somebody knows what I mean. I want to see the new London, not what little is left of the old one, especially when it's just there for tourists.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping if you can.

ttt. So I see it in the morning. I have some ideas.....

I wouldn't say "What little is left of the old London", it's all a glorious muddle of old, new, historic and merely overlooked for a century or more, picturesque and dull, etc., etc.

Places where successive immigrations have come in don't, for the most part, alter the basic architecture and layout of the streets, of course. So one of the attractions of Brick Lane/Spitalfields is that you can see the inheritance of 18th century French Huguenots, 19th century Irish labourers, 19th and 20th century Jewish traders and craftsmen, 20th and 21st century Bengali traders and restaurateurs - and 21st century arty-crafty people from all over, in Spitalfields market. And up and down Bishopsgate are plenty of shiny office blocks.

Another suggestion would be Deptford High St, and if you can find it, not too far away is the Laban dance centre, which caused some architectural interest.
http://www.laban.org/building.phtml

But another point is that startling new buildings tend to be one-offs. The Swaminarayan Hindu temple in Neasden that you mention is marooned in the middle of very ordinary 20s and 30s housing like vast swathes of London. (It is worth a visit if you can).

http://www.mandir.org/

For ethnic mixtures, off the top of my head, Southall, Green Lanes or Stoke Newington might be another option, or around Kingsland Road or Mare St in Hackney.

I'm not the best person to talk about offbeat performance spaces, but one that comes to mind is Wilton's Music Hall in east London, which does all sorts: but, to continue my theme, it is an original Victorian music hall. It's awaiting restoration, so it looks interestingly decrepit.

http://www.wiltons.org.uk/

Edgware Road has a distinct middle eastern flavor with people in various forms of non-western dress and many restaurants and shisha cafes where people sit outside and smoke water pipes.

Great question. If you accidentally run into the royal family you can snub them.

PatrickLondon, thanks very much! I hear you about them not moving the architecture. In fact, while I was reading one of these guidebooks, I was thinking: "Do they really think I'm not going to notice that's Big Ben?" And it's not like if I'm walking past the Brompton Oratory I'm not going to go in. Or some creaky old pub. But listen, thanks for those tips!

Thanks, Nikki!

Stoke, I wouldn't snub them! Truth be told, I feel sorry for them. But I don't feel drawn to looking at their stuff.

I've only been to London a couple of times so I'm not really an expert who can give you lots of help, but I know <i>exactly</i> where you are coming from.

Definitely check out Time Out London online, it can be a good resource for gallery exhibits and alternative theater schedules. The hardcopy guide book is good too, but the website has all the update listings info.

The City has some fantastic modern architecture, I also really like the architecture of the Docklands area.

I don't think Shoreditch/Hoxton count as cutting edge anymore but there are a lot of modern galleries, restaurants, and bars.

Camden Town is about as edgy as a pound of butter but it's fun to walk around, especially imo in the early morning before anything is open. I like the more northern strip up to Chalk Farm.

If you like graffiti of course there are Banksy's to be seen. Banksy map here: http://www.zeemaps.com/map.do?group=1571

And I haven't been yet but I've got both Brixton and Hackney on my list.

Meant to post the link to Time Out:

http://www.timeout.com/london/

Thanks, Apres-Londee! And thanks for the link.

One problem certainly is that the "cutting edge" is always moving. I'm not sure I like graffiti. :(

I'm also thinking about going for a long sit in the Houses of Parliament. Can one visit the London Stock Exchange? If I took a tour of Scotland Yard, I figure its got to be the "official story" -- but is it still telling? Like, are they bad at telling the story? Lol!

Anybody have an opinion about the Speaker's Corner?

You don't have to be rude to the royal family if they cross your path, primera. Just pretend to see something on the other side of the street, or bend down to tie your shoe.

It's worth going to Speaker's Corner just to see what it's all about. Predominantly religious messages, but there might be some interesting political ranting.

PS: The flow of humanity, very 21st C, is the most interesting thing about London.

I would never be rude to them! I told you! I don't mind them personally at all! (Except Elizabeth and Philip. They're awful!)

I agree with you about the flow of humanity, especially globalized humanity. But in London, you know that gets steered out of the tourist areas. I was wondering if there is something to learn by going to neighborhoods where Hong Kong people or African people have flowed in. (I'm making that up. Just asking.)

I know that in some sense it's silly to ask "Where do you go to see today's London?"

Like, duh! Just go!

But I think if somebody visited me in San Francisco, or New York, and said:

"I want to see today's city, how it's working itself out, not the San Francisco of New York that's iconic fantasy and about yesterday" -- I'd kind of know where to take them. Just like I'd know where to take them if they said the opposite.

Yeah. I should just go to Speaker's Corner. I hope it's not all religious rants, or spaceship rants.

"I'm also thinking about going for a long sit in the Houses of Parliament."
Visitors to Britan can queue up for debates (or just walk in if it's a particularly boring subject). If there isn't a debate on, non-residents may only go on a set tour during part of the summer recess

"Can one visit the London Stock Exchange?"
What's to visit? Nothing happens at the Exchange, which is just an office building. Trading is all electronic. All that histrionic bell-ringing, flag-waving, self-congratulatory nonsense they get up to in New York was phased out decades (seriously) ago

If I took a tour of Scotland Yard, I figure its got to be the "official story" -- but is it still telling? Like, are they bad at telling the story?"
It's the operational centre of a police force. It's not a tourist attraction

"Anybody have an opinion about the Speaker's Corner?"
Crap. Interesting if you're from a country like China where freee speech is a novelty. Read tabloid newspapers, listen to radio phone ins. Anything but get involved with the tossers at Speakers Corner.

Still thinking about more useful suggestions

Regarding avant garde theatre, the Soho Theatre and Sadler's Wells often have a pretty interesting line-up (some of which strays into the avant garde).

If you're after full-on performance art, Time Out will be your best friend as there are so many tiny venues scattered across London that it's really the only way to be sure of catching something that you might want to see.

A 'cutting edge' area of London doesn't really exist unfortunately. There are pockets of interest all over the city but there's not really a single area you can go to get that feeling. As Apres_Londee says, Shoreditch/Hoxton is no longer cutting edge but the identikit folk that live there (skinny jeans, fixed-gear bikes and French bulldogs as accessories) would have you believe otherwise.

There are definitely some interesting bars/restaurants in the area but be prepared to assessed from head-to-toe any time you go into one.

If you want to see "how the city's working itself out", head over to Hackney/Dalston/Victoria Park and classes and types of people living cheek-by-jowl as developers/trustafarians move in and buy up buildings next to council housing and businesses that have been in the same location for decades.

> I'm actually interested in experiencing more of contemporary London -- maybe immigrant neighborhoods, newer architecture, maybe a well-regarded avant-garde theater space or---- ???

Immigrant neighborhoods - Brixton (Caribbeans), Brick Lane (Bangladeshi), Vauxhall (Portuguese), and otherwise scattered all over London and beyond

Newer architecture - Canary Wharf, Docklands, various London buildings even in the centre

Well-regarded avant-garde theater space - It's not really avant-garde, but I like the National Theatre and its (I think) three stages. It's more the production that is avant-garde than the space, I think, so use various sources to find such productions. I have been to interesting (if amateurish, not badly, though) productions in Hampstead and Richmond, although I guess Shaw in the latter case is not exactly avant-garde.

I think you would like the Time Out guidebook to London, for starters.

If it helps, even without specifically avoiding them, I'm sure I do not ever spend more than 5-10% of my London trips on any of your undesired sights or places: "Nothing to do with the royal family No historic pubs No shopping No gardens No WW2 monuments No dangerous, hostile or prostitution neighborhoods." So the odds of you actually doing these things if you are trying to avoid them must be nil.

If I took a tour of Scotland Yard, I figure its got to be the "official story" -- but is it still telling? Like, are they bad at telling the story?">>>>

It's a 1960s concrete office block with smelly drains and a rubbish canteen (called Peelers would you believe) and mental lifts that just take you where they think you should go, no matter what button you push. They even closed The Tank (the bar)

You can't go in. It's the HQ of the Met and is surrounded by armed police and all sorts of anti bomb stuff. They don't like you even taking photos of anything other than the rotating sign.

Hang around the Yard and you'll get a tug (and not the good kind)

But in all honesty you're missing nowt. A trip around an insurance company would be as much fun.

BBC tours?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tours/

Don't know if you'd call it avant-garde, but the Royal Court Theater showcases new writing and acting talents.

I'd think being in a radio audience would be fun.

>>I'd think being in a radio audience would be fun.<<

Here you go:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/tickets/

I'm also thinking I'd like to see that huge Hindu temple that's on the outskirts of town. Is it interesting to walk around strongly ethnic neighborhoods?

The 'temple' no doubt is the new one at Neasden and its design has been called one of the most significant new architecture in London

It is in the vicinity of Wembley Stadium and Wembley, where there streets of South Asian shops, etc.

Another ethnic area i visited a few years back was Green Street, in East London and that street could well have been in India some place - sari shops, sweet shops, South Asian restaurants, etc.


Welcome to BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Europe's first traditional Hindu temple. Located in Neasden, north London – and popularly known as the 'Neasden ...
www.mandir.org/

The Mandir, London
More results from mandir.org »
Visitor Information - BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, London
Neasden Station – Jubilee Line (click here for suggested walking route)
www.mandir.org/infogallery/index.htm

Hi, thanks everybody! Lots to think about here and track down,

Flanneruk,

I get what you're saying about China and the Speaker's Corner, but I have this view that what people call "free speech" is actually more like "free to write it down" or publish it. Even in "free speech" countries people are afraid to say a lot of things to other people who are facing them that they aren't afraid to write. It's takes some courage to say things when people can see who you are and laugh at you. I was thinking it might be interesting to go to Parliament and then go to the Speaker's Corner and figure out who was saner, braver, likely to beat Gordon Brown, etc., lol!

About Scotland Yard: Okay, I won't try to get in (I'm afraid what they'd do!) but I think in America you can tour the FBI building. Most places have a police museum. Does London? What I'd really like to do is go wherever whoever it is watches all the CCTV. I know I couldnt get in, but where is that, anyway?

BBC might be fun. (Isn't the BBC in a building designed by Lutyens?) Likewise, seeing new theater and seeing who goes to new theater, so thanks for all these specifics about where to find it.

What about the upscale? What's the most pretentious neighborhood in London today? That might be a hoot! The least pretentious? The most integrated?

What about the Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods? Interesting? Can I get a good bagel?

Thanks again all!

I still think you're confusing a question about "what's interesting about the London people live in" with a question about the tiny proportion of interesting things that postdate WW2.

You just can't ghettoise things in London like that. Most of our lives take place in old buildings, and in much of the centre in streets whose basic plans are unchanged since Roman times.

Take building

A LOT of London's best buildings over the past 15 years fuse old and new. The Millennium Bridge works because it links an early 20th century power station to a 17th century cathedral: St Pancras station (and the now-sleeping Eurostar terminal at Waterloo) are both recent stuff added to 19th c stations: much like the Grand Court at the British Museum, the Sainsbury wing at the National Gallery or Tate Modern.

IMHO, the most interesting recent construction is the network of stations on the late-90s Jubilee tube line from, and east of, Westminster station. "Pure" new buildings are often at best mediocre (anything at Canary Wharf, except for the tube station, the awful stretch of the Thames' South Bank between Hungerford Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge, and most new building east of Tower Bridge)

I've struggled to find an easy source of interesting new buildings, and I'm posting a new thread to seek suggestions. Most people would probably include these buildings, though:

The MI6 building at Vauxhall Cross
The Swiss Re building (aka "the Gherkin")
The London Assembly building ("Glass testicle")opposite the Tower
Lloyds Insurance in the City
The British Library at St Pancras
Possibly the O2 building (once called the Dome) at Greenwich

>>Even in "free speech" countries people are afraid to say a lot of things to other people who are facing them that they aren't afraid to write.<<

That may be true, but one thing we are adept at in Britain is taking no notice of people shouting in the street (what with mobile phones, it's less of an oddity anyway, of course). That's why some of us come on boards like this - hadn't you noticed?

The Metropolitan Police apparently opened a collection of some of its memorabilia last summer (not its Crime Museum), but I can't find out much about it. I know there's a collection of river police bits and pieces at the Wapping river police station, which is volunter-run and not always open. Likewise the City of London police have an appointment-only collection.

There will be loads of control rooms looking at different CCTV monitors for different purposes, but by definition, we don't know where they are. Believe it or not, there is a legal issue about data protection if all and sundry knew how to get at them.

Upscale and expensive? Palace Gardens and round the back to Kensington Palace is supposed to be full of Russian millionaires and their bling. Bishop's Avenue in Hampstead.

What I'd really like to do is go wherever whoever it is watches all the CCTV. I know I couldnt get in, but where is that, anyway?>>>>

*cough* hammersmith *cough*

What about the Orthodox Jewish neighbourhoods? Interesting? Can I get a good bagel?>>>

There isn’t one really. Stamford Hill is probably the closest thing – but its dingey and there’s nothing to see (it’s a very high crime area too).

Bog standard jews tend to live in Gants Hill, Golders Green, Hampstead Garden Suburb or my house.

You want a bagel? Go to Brick Lane Bagel Bakery.

Thanks Cholmondly for the bagel tip. Eating bagels on Brick Lane sounds like the kind of experience I'm talking about. What was Brick Lane before it was the Brick Lane it is today?

flanneruk and patrick london

It is fair to accuse me of confusion about just about anything in this thread. In some senses, I posted a question saying: "London is mystifying me. The guidebooks are useless because they are pointing me to static, fixed things -- because that's what most visitors want to see. Something "British" that hasn't changed since 1066 and all that. I want to understand the present-day dynamics."

I know it's silly to think I'm going to understand that on a visit. But what's a heaven for, etc. Believe me, it's already been plain to me that new architecture in London changed the way people thought about their town and used London, and imagined London had a future to chase. The Tate Modern did that big time, I think, creating that huge public space indoors. I suppose the Eye does that too, although I think I'll skip going on it. But I've been intrigued by this list of new great architecture, although I have seen a lot on previous visits, but I'll look at it differently.

I really wish it was possible to go to the top of the Swiss Re building.

And I meant to ask: What do you think of Marylebone and Shepherd's Bush?

I can’t really comment on Marylebone, but I know Shepherds Bush intimately (and professionally).

In short – don’t go there. There’s nothing there unless you like hanging out with, literally, thousands of Aussies in a huge bar called Walkabout. Other than that there is the Empire – which is a good concert venue – almost totally rock and pop.

The rest of it is as dull as ditchwater. There’s an enormous shopping centre called Westfield in Wood Lane – opposite the BBC studios.

There’s Queens Park Rangers football club and a truly great polish restaurant.

But what on Earth could make you want to go to Shepherds Bush?

Marylebone is pretty much the polar opposite of Cholmondley's description of Shepherd Bush. Lots of independent shops, a smattering of cafes, pubs and bars and the Wallace Collection just off the end of Marylebone High Street.

Lots of yummy Mummies and wealthy expats live in the area, so the area caters to them and does so very well in my opinion. I lived there during my student days when rents were more realistic and I still go back regularly as I thoroughly enjoy just mooching 'round the streets, stopping off for the odd drink or bite to eat and watching the (beautiful) world go by.

It's definitely worth a couple of hours of anyone's time, I think.

primera, I'd be interested in your take on Speaker's Corner. No, you won't hear much political give and take.

The couple of times I was there in the past few years, the speakers were largely what I'd call disaffected minorities. One women sharing her mystical crackpot theory was aggressively heckled, and an American with a Southern accent and a cowboy hat reading from the Bible had a large and attentive crowd.

What's that portentous old line about " A million stories in the Naked City".... or something similar? What London is today, as it probably always has been, will be almost unknowably different for different people: we all have our individual rat-runs and only the most marginal perception what so many other people's will be like.

For the kind of thing you're talking about, I'd second flanner's suggestion of the Jubilee Line extension stations, from Westminster eastwards (when you visit Westminster, bear in mind that they built the Jubilee Line extension and the huge box all the escalators and stairs are in, and the office building above the station, while the District and Circle line trains kept on running through).

For ethnic flavours and mixtures, I think we've covered quite a lot. Brick Lane/Spitalfields on a Sunday, and maybe get a bus up Kingsland Road to Mare St in Hackney (you'll pass various mixtures of Turkish, Vietnamese and hints of Africa and Eastern Europe); Brixton; Southall; Green Lanes.

I was all set to say seven million stories in the naked city, I've been saying that for years. But google instructs me that it was actually eight million.

http://www.museum.tv/eotvsection.php...code=nakedcity

I used to see the TV crews filming the episodes when I was a kid in New York.

My recent visits to Speakers Corners were a real let down from visits there a decade or more ago - not much political dialogue but a lot of diatribes - lots of religious nutters and militant arnarchists but all in all not the lively cerebral experience it was in the 80s.

Blimey. Eight million naked New Yorkers. Hardly bears thinking about.

I love militant anarchists. It seems to me that people will listen to a rant if it's set to music but not if people just rant. I like rants.

About Shepherd's Bush and Marylebone, I asked for your takes because I've been to both and wanted to get some idea if whether we had the same reactions to things. I hated Shepherds Bush (I don't if there were Aussies' there when I was there) but to me it was just a kind of a caricature of a social neighborhood, utterly commercialized. I saw that Marylebone was yuppie, but that also means people trying to work out a different kind of urbanism, experimenting, supporting local shops, and I liked it. I was also thinking about going to the Wallace Collection.

I really appreciate all this info, having it in one place, and I agree with Patrick London that all the basics are here for me to do what I want, even more than enough. What I'm envisioning now is putting together a mix of some old and some new, because whenever I am in London I like to go to the British Museum and the Globe (or find some Shakespeare somewhere), plus the Houses of Parliament and this time fit in the Wallace Collection (I've never seen it) and then mix in the new-resident immigrant neighborhoods, the new architecture, the new performances. Sounds more interesting, to me anyway, than hanging around waiting for the guard to change.

Thanks again!

Sounds like a great trip primeranoche and I couldn't agree more.

The Wallace collection is definitely worth a visit (as is the Courtauld Collection at Somerset House if you get the chance).

Sorry I missed your post before, JayG. Just catching up now.

I've been to the Courtauld many times and I love Somerset House. I try never to miss that, and what's on there if I think it interesting. I'm looking forward to finally seeing the Wallace Collection. Sounds perfect for a rainy day.

Shepherd's bush- think The Who came from there-

And got out as quick as they could.