The Changing Faces of Brick Lane

Winding through the heart of the East End from Bethnal Green, pausing for a brief embrace with Spitalfields before emerging in Whitechapel, is a street of many identities. Brick Lane, otherwise celebrated as Banglatown, becomes home to a bustling market come Sunday, when art  students, bargain hunters and Londoners of all artistic dispensations descend to build a vibrant  mise-en- scène.

As a young girl I would eagerly anticipate my weekend trips to London. Training at the Urdang Academy would be sandwiched between fleeting trips to Petticoat Lane and a chocolate   brownie at Old Spitalfields before flying off to ballet class.

My arrival as a student in London two  years ago therefore heralded a different appreciation of market life. Now there was time to walk  the streets with flaneurial whim; to engage the mind, awaken the senses and explore the curiosities both above and below ground. The urban experience has been narrated well enough; though the joy of wandering lies in learning about the city space through personal interpretation. Such as in John Gay’s famous poem ‘Walking the Streets of London’, the realities of the thoroughfares can only really be realised by walking the streets oneself.

The well discussed nature of Brick Lane means that it can sometimes become subject to generalisations. Whilst in our best interests to paint the wonder of such pockets of London life, terms like ‘melting pot’, ‘multiplicity’ and ‘bohemian’ get heartily appropriated, as often as they are used to describe the characters that frequent the city streets.

Some things remain the same. Established curry houses, trusted beigel cafés and the grandfather of regenerative creative enterprise, the Old Truman Brewery safeguard the alleyways. But Brick Lane is much more a kaleidoscopic frame of London life; never second guessed, its patterns never repeated. Perhaps we need to change our mindsets and start treating the streets like people; each one replete with its own idiosyncrasies. The truth is, the genetic makeup of this street is ever changing; shifting and evolving like its crowds of visitors. To label anything, is ultimately to limit its inherent diversity.

It would be beneficial to develop an appreciation of places such as Brick Lane as a collective entity; after all, it is not just simply one boutique, coffee shop or vintage stall that encapsulates the authentic market life of times past, melded with the promise of modern culture. It is the remarkable mixture of binaries co- exiting harmoniously that makes this place so special. Old and new, Eastern and Western, vintage and modern, shops and stalls. They give life to one another; complement each other’s differences and drip-feed with each new sight, sound or smell into a sensuous urban experience.

In the summer, I would spend Sunday afternoons sitting on the pavements, hands clasped around my knees as the throngs of shoppers meandered past. Fur coats and cups of homemade soup are now the accessories of choice as autumnal leaves scatter the streets like spilt popcorn. As the seasons roll around, Brick Lane continues to adapt and surprise in time-honoured form.

By Christobel Hastings