The London Bombings

Six years ago today four bombers brought death and carnage to London's transport system. The attacks by four suicide bombers on the London Transport system on 7th July 2005 were the largest mass murder in Britain in peacetime killing 52 passengers on The Tube and on the No. 30 bus at Tavistock Square and injuring 800 more, many seriously.

The victims are not forgotten

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/remembering-london-bombings.html

Bethnal Green Tube Disaster – Memorial Service

The proposed "Stairway to Heaven" Memorial

68 years ago on March 3rd. 1943 in the largest loss of civilian life in a single non-military incident during World War II, 173 people perished at Bethnal Green tube station. They are not forgotten.





Today on Sunday 6th March 2011 a Commemoration Service for the 68th anniversary of the Bethnal Green tube disaster took place at St. John on Bethnal Green Church (next door to the tube station) at 2pm. There was a blessing at the top of the stairs where everyone died and relatives and survivors were encouraged to lay flowers or wreaths to their loved ones. Refreshments and a chance for locals and supporters to reminisce after the Service were provided inside the church and there was an exhibition of articles, photographs and other information about the Bethnal Green tube disaster.

Here is an eyewitness testimony of what happened that fateful night;



“Bethnal Green tube station was used as a shelter. The line was boarded over there. Women worked down there on war work. They were safe from the bombing. I think the warning went, and they opened up with rockets. They reckon people started running in the station, causing a panic. They reckon probably a woman with a child had a bundle of clothing, fell, and then the other people fell on top of her, and they all piled up until there was a hundred and seventy-three people that was killed. The next day the air raid warden asked us to look at the ones they couldn’t identify. There was a pile of bodies, and the police uncovered their faces in case you might recognise people. Out of fifty or sixty people there, there was nothing I could recognise.”

Albert Garrett

The Memorial Fund is dedicated to building a “Stairway to Heaven” to properly commemorate the victims. Its patron Tommy Walsh was there and the names of all those who died were read out. Here is the detail of the fundraising to date and the proposed memorial; Please help by contributing to this cause.


Tommy Walsh, Patron of the charity

http://www.stairwaytoheavenmemorial.org/

Here is the coverage of the service on ITV News; the BBC didn’t bother to turn up.

http://www.itv.com/london/memorial53354/

Commemorative Plaque


In Memory of the 173 Men, Women and Children who lost their lives on the evening of
Wednesday 3rd March 1943 descending these steps to Bethnal Green underground air raid shelter
Not forgotten.

For the full story of the Bethnal Green Disaster see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/02/bethnal-green-tube-disaster.html



Here is a short documentary of the Disaster and the proposed memorial. It includes an interview with Alf Morris who as a 13 year old was the last survivor to be dragged alive from the crush.

Paolozzi @ Tottenham Court Road

Anybody who has been up around London’s Tottenham Court Road Tube Station lately (known to Tube aficionados as TCR) will have noticed that the Astoria Ballroom, venue for many hedonistic concerts and druggy 21st. birthday parties, and much else has gone to be replaced by a huge building site in preparation for Crossrail. One consequence of the £1 billion transformation of Tottenham Court Road station (to expand the ticket hall by almost six times and prepare the station for Crossrail) is the threat to the fabulous murals by Sir Eduardo Paolozzi. The late Scottish sculptor and "pop artist" was commissioned by London Underground in the early 1980s to help brighten up its stations. He took his inspiration from the jazz clubs of Soho, and the mosaic on the westbound Central line platforms features saxophones echoing nearby Denmark Street which is full of musical retailers. Other mosaics reflect the hustle and bustle of the city with running legs and other motifs of the busy lives of commuters.




Sir Eduardo unveiled a giant Newton statue at the British Library in 1997 in the presence of prime minister's wife Cherie Blair

His designs help passengers to momentarily forget that Tottenham Court Road is, in the main, an overcrowded interchange between the Northern and Central lines (it is used by 147,000 passengers a day). Instead they feel like they are part of Underground history, the murals having the look of something far older than their 27 years (the work was completed in 1984). However these are very important artworks as the mosaic murals that adorn seemingly every available surface at Tottenham Court Road station are the work one of the great British artists and sculptors of the twentieth century, whose work is often considered a forerunner to that of the later Pop Artists. Indeed he was the first artist to use the word “Pop” in an artwork. Paolozzi's I was a Rich Man's Plaything (1947) is considered the first standard bearer of Pop Art and first to display the word "pop". Paolozzi showed the collage in 1952 as part of his groundbreaking Bunk! series presentation at the initial Independent Group meeting in London.


"I was a rich man's plaything" - 1947


Bunk!


Sir Eduardo Luigi Paolozzi, KBE, RA (7 March 1924 – 22 April 2005), was a Scottish sculptor and artist. He was a major figure in the international art world working without compromise on his own interpretation and vision of the world around us all. Paolozzi investigated how we can fit into the modern world to resemble our fragmented civilization through imagination and fantasy. By the dramatic juxtaposition of ideas in his work, he let us see the confusion as well as the inspiration.




Paolozzi's Head @ The Design Museum


Northern Line passage


Born to Italian Immigrants in 1926 he had a long association with London prior to his death in 2005. He studied at both St Martins and the Slade School of Fine Art and, after spending several years in Paris in the late forties, returned to London and ran a studio out of Chelsea. Beginning with his work on cooling tower panels in Pimlico during the seventies, and ultimately culminating in the truly wonderful Newton at the British Library in the nineties, Paolozzi left an impressive imprint on the Capital.


Main Entrance to the station before demolition




Paolozzi's signature



For eight months from April 2011, Northern line services will not stop at Tottenham Court Road to allow essential works to be completed at the station. Contractors will be working 24 hours to rebuild sections of the tunnel lining and dig new connecting passages. This will allow new escalators to be connected to the platforms. The station will remain open and Central line services will run as normal. Customers wishing to use the Northern line should use nearby Leicester Square or Goodge Street stations. Something similar will happen with the Central line after the Olympics. The station is due to be completed by 2016 (and will remain open for as much of the project as possible). Project engineers admit they have no idea what effect the construction work will have on the tiled walls.




Escalator entrance


Face

London Underground, which dates from 1863, of course have many Listed Buildings including their iconic HQ at 55, Broadway and an active Art on the Underground programme and are well used to conservation issues. They have issued this statement.


Leg





“London Underground highly values the Paolozzi mosaics within Tottenham Court Road Underground station, and alongside the Tube’s ‘Art on the Underground’ programme, we have been working closely with the Paolozzi Foundation as the Tottenham Court Road upgrade progresses. We are taking great care to protect and preserve these wonderful mosaics as we upgrade Tottenham Court Road station.





"As part of the upgrade of the station, major engineering works are required in the platform tunnels to strengthen them before new passageways are dug. This will mean that some sections of existing mosaic tiles will have to be carefully removed and reinstated once the tunnelling work is finished. Where small sections do have to be permanently removed from their current location, they will be preserved with the aim of being used elsewhere on the station in the future.”



The new TCR underground




My own view is, as wonderful as the murals are, they should never have been done. A deep Tube station is fundamentally a utilitarian pipeline for people and trains and simplicity of finishes and ease of circulation is really what people want with the design statements confined to the entrances. This is what the great architect Charles Holden achieved with his iconic work, especially on the Piccadilly Line on the 1930’s. The new stations on the Jubilee Line Extension in 1999 also took this approach and achieved a new architectural standard with Westminster Station winning the “Building of the Year” award and Canary Wharf and North Greenwich in particular providing a great sense of spectacle. The Tube has a great tradition of wall design with many of the early stations having unique tile designs which served as a visual location indicator to arriving passengers.


Northern Line mosaic


Cow






However covering every surface with artwork like at Paolozzi’s TCR makes you something of a hostage to fortune. For in what is essentially a utilitarian context you will need to make changes, add / remove equipment rewire, retrunk and so on and every time there is a danger to the mosaics. If you ask TCR users what they want they will tell you it is a station with better access, less claustrophobic and with more sense of space. The renovations will undoubtedly provide this and in making for a better ambience they will hopefully allow Paolozzi’s vibrant and exciting murals to be better seen and appreciated in a more comfortable and less stressed environment. For, whatever about the advisability of doing them in the first place, they are a unique and exciting legacy of one of Britain’s most exciting 20th Century artists. Indeed they are rendered even more exciting by being in such a mundane and unexpected location, one of London’s busiest Tube stations. This is a magnificent display of “Art for the People.”


Bird


Rotunda




Entrance to Crossrail at Centrepoint TCR

London Underground appears mindful of protecting the murals but fans of Paolozzi, and of the unique character of much of the Tube, may need to remain vigilant as the huge construction works at Tottenham Court Road station continue over many years.


The new TCR station


New Dean Street Entrance



For more on London Underground and its rich design heritage see TUBEBLOGS in my Blog sidebar >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

A slow day in London Town

“Worst Tube strikes yet say commuters as walkouts cripple London” was the headline in today’s London Evening Standard. Commuters struggling to get to work were today caught in a war of words over the third 24-hour Tube strike in as many months. All 11 lines suffered major disruption, 80 stations were closed and 100 stations were picketed in a row with the RMT and TSSA unions over job cuts and ticket office closures. Union bosses and angry passengers claimed the service was “far worse” than during the two previous strikes. At Marylebone Station this morning the lack of alternatives to The Tube were evident. The “Marshall” at the taxi rank had added to the confusion by reversing the direction of flow of the queue but this didn’t really matter. As with the last strikes there were hardly any taxis at the ranks as the “City Boys” block book them as these titans of Casino Banking are more important to London than people who do real stuff. No sign of the extra buses either, rather the opposite as road works made the traffic in the area impossible. A 205 bus to Bow in East London turned up from Paddington already full and no sign of the No. 2 bus to Victoria.



Commuters struggling home this evening were warned to expect another Tube strike on November 29 and then a series of stoppages after Christmas. Union bosses said walkouts in January could be announced after a “truce” next month. Tens of thousands of passengers suffered today as the third 24-hour strike in as many months caused disruption across the network. All 11 lines suffered major problems or were suspended, 80 stations were closed and 100 stations were picketed in a row with the RMT and TSSA unions over job cuts and ticket office closures.

The Standard quoted commuters urging Boris Johnson to tell Tube workers “enough is enough”. A commuter from Richmond was quoted as saying said: “The strikes are obviously getting worse. I have to get a taxi instead.” A spokesman for the RMT said there was “no question” disruption was worse than the last strikes with leader Bob Crow saying: “Today's action is rock solid the length and breadth of the system.”


Covent Garden Tube Station

London Underground insisted it had more trains running and more stations open than before. Managing director Mike Brown said: “Despite the deluded claims by the RMT and TSSA leaderships the Tube service this morning is moving hundreds of thousands of people across London. Over 40% of our services are running, with all but one line being served and that is the Circle line, where almost every station is served by other lines. 75% of stations are being served, and we are keeping London moving.” LU said 50 trains were operating on the Northern compared with 29 last time. But a third of the line's 33 stations were closed because there were no staff to operate them, meaning that even though trains were running, commuters could not get onto the platforms to catch them.

Among the Tube stations closed during today were Charing Cross, Westminster, Piccadilly Circus and Knightsbridge as well as Heathrow Terminal 4. The Mayor came under renewed fire for not personally meeting the RMT and TSSA unions. A fourth walk-out is planned for November 29 and with no resolution to the dispute in sight passengers were warned of more strikes in the run-up to Christmas. London Underground said at the height of the morning peak period it was operating 44 per cent of services compared with 28 per cent last time.



Lines were either suspended over part of the route or ran with massive delays and cancellations. The Circle line will be suspended throughout the day and there was no service on the Waterloo and City lines for an essential part of the morning peak. Roger, travelling through Victoria, said: “It was terrible down there. It's the queuing to get into the station that's really bad. Some of the lines are totally crippled. People just have to get on with it as best they can.”



Gary, an IT trainer from Kent, said: “I can see these strikes going on for some time because their positions are fairly entrenched and it is difficult to see how a speedy resolution will be arrived at.” Mr Crow insisted that the strike was over “safe Tube staffing levels as our members send out the clearest possible message to the Mayor to call a halt to cuts before there's a major disaster”.



The conciliation service ACAS announced that fresh talks will be held tomorrow. The unions are protesting at plans to axe 800 mainly ticket office jobs, although they claim the number is set to rise to almost 2,000. TfL deny that safety is being compromised and insist there will be no enforced redundancies. While commuters in London had well practised strike routines, tourists to the city found their plans thrown into disarray.



Stefan from Berlin said: “It's a nightmare for people visiting London.” However the cutbacks in Underground are regarded as the thin end of a pointed political wedge to cutback the Underground which includes further redundancy, centralisation of HR, Finance and IT within the TfL organisation and selling off 55, Broadway, London Underground’s iconic and fully paid for Head Office (Estates Gazette February 14th 2009).

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

Whereas London Underground is being told to cut its cloth according to a recent BBC article on pay and bonuses TfL is very much committed to Rolls-Royce solutions with some employees on large salaries getting half as much again as bonuses.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11369278

Having explicitly committed to no ticket office closures in his Mayoral election manifesto Mayor Boris Johnson is now hoisted on his own petard, so being Boris you then make noise about something nay anything and wave your arms frantically! So now Boris is on the news banging on about banning strikes where less than 50% of union members vote. This could also be an awkward argument for BoJo as such a "turnout threshold" would have prevented his own election on the back of just 19% of London voters.



And the only reason he is talking about one now is to cover for his total inaction in getting the promised "no strike deal" with the unions. So as you mull that one over on your journey home tonight here's a few other statistics from the “Tory Troll” Blog to think about:

Boris Johnson's meetings since 2008:

Rupert Murdoch: 1
Rebekah Wade, The Sun: 2
Lord Rothermere, Daily Mail: 1
Richard Madeley and Judy Finnigan: 1
Lily Allen: 1
Kelly Brook: 2
Tube Union leaders: 0


What Boris promised when running for election?


Boris discussing important matters with Lily Rose Beatrice Allen, a popular chanteuse. Who says Global warming is not real?