Shoreditch in Hackney, east London is gentrified. In the 1980s it was faded and in large parts grotty and dilapidated. Peter Marshall was there, just as Alan Denney had gone round photographing Stoke Newington at the other end of Kingsland Road during the grim winter of 1978/79. The place looked as it had been abandoned. There were rows and rows of decaying, poorly-maintained Victorian houses many of them empty. Nearby Dalston was in the words of one journalist “a faded suburb with jaunty air“, a den of thieves and derelicts.
If you stroll through Shoreditch, Dalston and Stoke Newington High Street or Church Street today it’s Planet Organic, Whole Foods and any number of ice-cream shops but in the 1980s years ago there were just innumerable empty shops many of them faced with graffitied corrugated iron.
Jumbo Tights, Great Eastern St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1990
Brick Lane, 1986
Entrance, Curtain Rd, 1986
Cutting, Shoreditch High St, 1990
S Louis, Furniture Manufacturers, French Place, 1990
French Place, 1987
Standard Place, Rivington St, 1986
Paul St, 1986
W A Hudson, Charlotte Rd, 1986
Waterson St, 1986
Shoreditch High St, 1986
Scrap metal merchants, Commercial St, Shoreditch, Tower Hamlets. 1980:
W Croll, Cabinet Maker, Rivington St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1990
The Mission, Holywell Lane, Shoreditch, Hackney 86
Luna Bar, Worship St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1986
Alley off Brick Lane and Shoreditch Underground Station, Shoreditch, Tower Hamlets. 1980
Old St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987
Sun St, Shoreditch, Hackney
Window, Shoreditch High St, 1990
‘I have just enjoyed looking at the photographs on the above page which bought back a lot of great memories. I noticed that the photograph showing ‘J. Crispin & Sons, Veneers’ (Fifth pic from bottom of page) has no location details. This is/was located at 94 and 96 Curtain Road, Shoreditch – The first-floor wooden structure is still there, the last time I looked’ – thanks to reader Phil
Great Eastern St, 1990
Elvisly Yours, Shoreditch High St, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1986
Posters, Swanfield St, Shoreditch, Tower Hamlets, 1990
Hardware Factors, Curtain Rd, New Inn Yard, Shoreditch, Hackney, 1987
Lead Image: Cheshire Street, 1986.
Via: Peter Marshall.
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