Right So I want to compile a list of possible key areas in the city for each setting and bring those lists here to form a master list. This should help prevent overlap as well as give us an idea of which areas to create into chat rooms and which can just be done custom by System Story Tellers.
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Join date : 2012-01-14
London Areas
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares[1] of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs both the gardens at Kew and Wakehurst Place gardens in Sussex. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is an internationally important botanical research and education institution with 700 staff and an income of £56 million for the year ended 31 March 2008, as well as a visitor attraction receiving almost two million visits in that year.[2] Created in 1759,[3] the gardens celebrated their 250th anniversary in 2009.
The Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is responsible for the world's largest collection of living plants. The organisation employs more than 650 scientists and other staff. The living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. The Kew site includes four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures in an internationally significant landscape.[4]
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction. [1]Coordinates: 51°30′36″N 0°8′4″W
Piccadilly now links directly to the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, as well as the Haymarket, Coventry Street (onwards to Leicester Square), and Glasshouse Street. The Circus is close to major shopping and entertainment areas in the West End. Its status as a major traffic intersection has made Piccadilly Circus a busy meeting place and a tourist attraction in its own right. The Circus is particularly known for its video display and neon signs mounted on the corner building on the northern side, as well as the Shaftesbury memorial fountain and statue of an archer popularly known as Eros (sometimes called The Angel of Christian Charity, but intended to be Anteros). It is surrounded by several noted buildings, including the London Pavilion and Criterion Theatre. Directly underneath the plaza is Piccadilly Circus tube station, part of the London Underground metro system.
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of contemporary art. The square is also used for political demonstrations and community gatherings, such as the celebration of New Year's Eve.
The name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars over France. The original name was to have been "King William the Fourth's Square", but George Ledwell Taylor suggested the name "Trafalgar Square".[1]
In the 1820s, George IV engaged the architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir Charles Barry and was completed in 1845
British Museum
The British Museum, in London, is widely considered to be one of the world's greatest museums of human history and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering some eight million works,[2] is amongst the finest, most comprehensive, and largest in existence[2] and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.[a]
The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of an expanding British colonial footprint and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1887. Some objects in the collection, most notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are the objects of intense controversy and of calls for restitution to their countries of origin.
Until 1997, when the British Library (previously centred on the Round Reading Room) moved to a new site, the British Museum was unique in that it housed both a national museum of antiquities and a national library in the same building. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all other national museums in the United Kingdom it charges no admission fee.[3] Since 2002 the director of the museum has been Neil MacGregor.[4]
London Underground
The London Underground (also known as The Tube or, simply, The Underground) is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England. It is the oldest underground railway in the world, the first section of which opened in 1863 on what are now the Circle & Hammersmith & City lines and part of the Metropolitan line.[3] In 1890 it became the first to operate electric trains.[4] The whole network is commonly referred to by Londoners and in official publicity as the Tube,[5] although that term originally applied only to the deep-level bored lines, whose trains are of a smaller and more circular cross-section, to distinguish them from the sub-surface "cut-and-cover" lines that were built first.
The earlier lines of the present London Underground network were built by various private companies. They became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) or London Transport was created. The underground network became a separate entity in 1985, when the UK Government created London Underground Limited (LUL).[6] Since 2003 LUL has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL), the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, which is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.[7]
The Underground serves 270 stations - there is a list here - and has 402 kilometres (250 mi) of track,[1] making it the second largest metro system in the world in terms of route miles, after the Shanghai Metro.[8] It also has one of the largest numbers of stations. In 2007, more than one billion passenger journeys were recorded,[2] making it the third busiest metro system in Europe, after Moscow and Paris. The tube is an international icon for London, with the tube map, considered a design classic, having influenced many other transport maps worldwide. Although also shown on the Tube map, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and London Overground are not part of the LUL network.
Currently, 86% of operational expenditure on the London Underground is covered by passenger fares.[9] Almost all London Underground trains currently lack air-conditioning, which leads to the network getting very hot in the summer, although plans are under way to mitigate this problem with new air-conditioned trains and other schemes.[10] Because of engineering work as part of the current upgrade plan, almost every weekend some lines are closed.
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is an area of central London between Euston Road and Holborn, developed by the Russell family in the 17th and 18th centuries into a fashionable residential area. It is notable for its array of garden squares,[1] literary connections (exemplified by the Bloomsbury Group) and numerous cultural, educational and healthcare institutions. While Bloomsbury was not the first area of London to have acquired a formal square, Bloomsbury Square, laid out in 1660 by Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton as Southampton Square, was the first square to be named as such.[2]
Bloomsbury is home to the University of London's central bodies and departments, including the Senate House Library and School of Advanced Study, and several of its colleges, including University College London, Birkbeck, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the School of Pharmacy and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Numerous healthcare institutions are located in Bloomsbury, including the British Medical Association, Great Ormond Street Hospital, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College Hospital and the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. The British Museum and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art are also located in the area.
Bloomsbury comes under the authority of the London Borough of Camden, and is in the Parliamentary constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.
Mayfair
Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today (from 1686 until it was banned in that location in 1764). Until 1686, the May Fair was held in Haymarket, and after 1764, it moved to Fair Field in Bow because the well-to-do residents of the area felt the fair lowered the tone of the neighbourhood.[1]
Mayfair was anciently part of the parish of St Martin in the Fields, and became part of St George Hanover Square in 1724. The new parish stretched to Bond Street in the southern part of Mayfair and almost to Regent Street north of Conduit Street. The northern boundary was Oxford Street and the southern boundary fell short of Piccadilly. The parish continued west of Mayfair into Hyde Park and then south to include Belgravia and other areas.
The old telephone district of MAYfair (later 629) changed east of Bond Street to REGent (later 734). Most of the area was first developed between the mid 17th century and the mid 18th century as a fashionable residential district, by a number of landlords, the most important of them being the Dukes of Westminster, the Grosvenor family. The Rothschild family bought up large areas of Mayfair in the 19th century. The freehold of a large section of Mayfair also belongs to the Crown Estate.
The district is now mainly commercial, with many offices in converted houses and new buildings, including major corporate headquarters, a concentration of hedge funds, real estate businesses and many different embassy offices, namely the U.S.'s large office taking up all the west side of Grosvenor Square.[2] Rents are among the highest in London and the world. There remains a substantial quantity of residential property as well as some exclusive shopping and London's largest concentration of luxury hotels and many restaurants. Buildings in Mayfair include both the Canadian High Commission and the United States embassy in Grosvenor Square, the Royal Academy of Arts, The Handel House Museum, the Grosvenor House Hotel, Claridge's and The Dorchester.
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located 3.4 miles (5.5 km) east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the south. The resident population are of varied ethnic origin, primarily Bengali. It is notably best known for being the location of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders in the late 1880s. The murderer was never identified, although rumours suggest over 100 names.
Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf is a major business district located in London, United Kingdom. It is one of London's two main financial centres, alongside the traditional City of London, and contains many of the UK's tallest buildings, including the second-tallest (and tallest completed), One Canada Square.[1][2] Canary Wharf contains around 14,000,000 square feet (1,300,000 m2) of office and retail space, of which around 7,900,000 square feet (730,000 m2) is owned by Canary Wharf Group.[3] Around 90,000 people work in Canary Wharf[4] and it is home to the world or European headquarters of numerous major banks, professional services firms and media organisations including Barclays, Citigroup, Clifford Chance, Credit Suisse, HSBC, KPMG, MetLife, Skadden, State Street and Thomson Reuters.[5]
Canary Wharf is located in the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs in the Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. The West India Docks once formed part of the busiest port in the world.[6] After the docks were closed in 1980 the British Government adopted various policies to stimulate the redevelopment of the area, including through the creation of the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1981 and granting the Isle of Dogs Enterprise Zone status in 1982.[6] In 1987 the Canadian company Olympia and York agreed to construct a major office development on the Isle of Dogs, with construction commencing in 1988.[6]
London Docklands
Docklands is the semi-official name for an area in east and southeast London, England. It forms part of the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. They have now been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name London Docklands was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 but has since become virtually universally adopted. It also created conflict between the new and old communities of the London Docklands.
West End of London
The West End of London (more commonly referred to as simply the West End) is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment (including the commercial West End theatres). Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross.[1] For strategic planning the area is identified as one of two international centres in the London Plan.[2]
The West End is the most expensive location in the world to rent office space.[3][4]
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary.[1] For the purposes of his book, East End Past, Richard Tames regards the area as coterminous with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets: however, he acknowledges that this narrow definition excludes parts of southern Hackney, such as Shoreditch and Hoxton, which many would regard as belonging to the East End.[2] Others again, such as Alan Palmer, would extend the area across the Lea to include parts of the London Borough of Newham;[3] while parts of the London Borough of Waltham Forest are also sometimes included. It is universally agreed, however, that the East End is to be distinguished from East London, which covers a much wider area.
Use of the term East End in a pejorative sense began in the late 19th century,[4] as the expansion of the population of London led to extreme overcrowding throughout the area and a concentration of poor people and immigrants.[5] The problems were exacerbated with the construction of St Katharine Docks (1827)[6] and the central London railway termini (1840–1875) that caused the clearance of former slums and rookeries, with many of the displaced people moving into the East End. Over the course of a century, the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality.[3]
The East End developed rapidly during the 19th century. Originally it was an area characterised by villages clustered around the City walls or along the main roads, surrounded by farmland, with marshes and small communities by the River, serving the needs of shipping and the Royal Navy. Until the arrival of formal docks, shipping was required to land its goods in the Pool of London, but industries related to construction, repair, and victualling of ships flourished in the area from Tudor times. The area attracted large numbers of rural people looking for employment. Successive waves of foreign immigration began with Huguenot refugees creating a new extramural suburb in Spitalfields in the 17th century.[7] They were followed by Irish weavers,[8] Ashkenazi Jews[9] and, in the 20th century, Bangladeshis.[10] Many of these immigrants worked in the clothing industry. The abundance of semi- and unskilled labour led to low wages and poor conditions throughout the East End. This brought the attentions of social reformers during the mid-18th century and led to the formation of unions and workers associations at the end of the century. The radicalism of the East End contributed to the formation of the Labour Party, and Emmeline Pankhurst based campaigns for women's votes in the area.
Official attempts to address the overcrowded housing began at the beginning of the 20th century under the London County Council. The Second World War devastated much of the East End, with its docks, railways and industry forming a continual target, leading to dispersal of the population to new suburbs and new housing being built in the 1950s.[3] The closure of the last of the East End docks in the Port of London in 1980 created further challenges and led to attempts at regeneration and the formation of the London Docklands Development Corporation. The Canary Wharf development, improved infrastructure, and the Olympic Park[11] mean that the East End is undergoing further change, but some parts continue to contain some of the worst poverty in Britain.[12]
Chinatown, London
The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street. It contains a number of Chinese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and other Chinese-run businesses.
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, usually referred to as Kew Gardens, is 121 hectares[1] of gardens and botanical glasshouses between Richmond and Kew in southwest London, England. "The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew" and the brand name "Kew" are also used as umbrella terms for the institution that runs both the gardens at Kew and Wakehurst Place gardens in Sussex. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, is an internationally important botanical research and education institution with 700 staff and an income of £56 million for the year ended 31 March 2008, as well as a visitor attraction receiving almost two million visits in that year.[2] Created in 1759,[3] the gardens celebrated their 250th anniversary in 2009.
The Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is responsible for the world's largest collection of living plants. The organisation employs more than 650 scientists and other staff. The living collections include more than 30,000 different kinds of plants, while the herbarium, which is one of the largest in the world, has over seven million preserved plant specimens. The library contains more than 750,000 volumes, and the illustrations collection contains more than 175,000 prints and drawings of plants. The Kew site includes four Grade I listed buildings and 36 Grade II listed structures in an internationally significant landscape.[4]
Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus is a road junction and public space of London's West End in the City of Westminster, built in 1819 to connect Regent Street with the major shopping street of Piccadilly. In this context, a circus, from the Latin word meaning "circle", is a round open space at a street junction. [1]Coordinates: 51°30′36″N 0°8′4″W
Piccadilly now links directly to the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, as well as the Haymarket, Coventry Street (onwards to Leicester Square), and Glasshouse Street. The Circus is close to major shopping and entertainment areas in the West End. Its status as a major traffic intersection has made Piccadilly Circus a busy meeting place and a tourist attraction in its own right. The Circus is particularly known for its video display and neon signs mounted on the corner building on the northern side, as well as the Shaftesbury memorial fountain and statue of an archer popularly known as Eros (sometimes called The Angel of Christian Charity, but intended to be Anteros). It is surrounded by several noted buildings, including the London Pavilion and Criterion Theatre. Directly underneath the plaza is Piccadilly Circus tube station, part of the London Underground metro system.
Trafalgar Square
Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of contemporary art. The square is also used for political demonstrations and community gatherings, such as the celebration of New Year's Eve.
The name commemorates the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), a British naval victory of the Napoleonic Wars over France. The original name was to have been "King William the Fourth's Square", but George Ledwell Taylor suggested the name "Trafalgar Square".[1]
In the 1820s, George IV engaged the architect John Nash to redevelop the area. Nash cleared the square as part of his Charing Cross Improvement Scheme. The present architecture of the square is due to Sir Charles Barry and was completed in 1845
British Museum
The British Museum, in London, is widely considered to be one of the world's greatest museums of human history and culture. Its permanent collection, numbering some eight million works,[2] is amongst the finest, most comprehensive, and largest in existence[2] and originate from all continents, illustrating and documenting the story of human culture from its beginnings to the present.[a]
The British Museum was established in 1753, largely based on the collections of the physician and scientist Sir Hans Sloane. The museum first opened to the public on 15 January 1759 in Montagu House in Bloomsbury, on the site of the current museum building. Its expansion over the following two and a half centuries was largely a result of an expanding British colonial footprint and has resulted in the creation of several branch institutions, the first being the British Museum (Natural History) in South Kensington in 1887. Some objects in the collection, most notably the Elgin Marbles from the Parthenon, are the objects of intense controversy and of calls for restitution to their countries of origin.
Until 1997, when the British Library (previously centred on the Round Reading Room) moved to a new site, the British Museum was unique in that it housed both a national museum of antiquities and a national library in the same building. The museum is a non-departmental public body sponsored by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, and as with all other national museums in the United Kingdom it charges no admission fee.[3] Since 2002 the director of the museum has been Neil MacGregor.[4]
London Underground
The London Underground (also known as The Tube or, simply, The Underground) is a rapid transit system serving a large part of Greater London and some parts of Buckinghamshire, Hertfordshire and Essex in England. It is the oldest underground railway in the world, the first section of which opened in 1863 on what are now the Circle & Hammersmith & City lines and part of the Metropolitan line.[3] In 1890 it became the first to operate electric trains.[4] The whole network is commonly referred to by Londoners and in official publicity as the Tube,[5] although that term originally applied only to the deep-level bored lines, whose trains are of a smaller and more circular cross-section, to distinguish them from the sub-surface "cut-and-cover" lines that were built first.
The earlier lines of the present London Underground network were built by various private companies. They became part of an integrated transport system in 1933 when the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) or London Transport was created. The underground network became a separate entity in 1985, when the UK Government created London Underground Limited (LUL).[6] Since 2003 LUL has been a wholly owned subsidiary of Transport for London (TfL), the statutory corporation responsible for most aspects of the transport system in Greater London, which is run by a board and a commissioner appointed by the Mayor of London.[7]
The Underground serves 270 stations - there is a list here - and has 402 kilometres (250 mi) of track,[1] making it the second largest metro system in the world in terms of route miles, after the Shanghai Metro.[8] It also has one of the largest numbers of stations. In 2007, more than one billion passenger journeys were recorded,[2] making it the third busiest metro system in Europe, after Moscow and Paris. The tube is an international icon for London, with the tube map, considered a design classic, having influenced many other transport maps worldwide. Although also shown on the Tube map, the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) and London Overground are not part of the LUL network.
Currently, 86% of operational expenditure on the London Underground is covered by passenger fares.[9] Almost all London Underground trains currently lack air-conditioning, which leads to the network getting very hot in the summer, although plans are under way to mitigate this problem with new air-conditioned trains and other schemes.[10] Because of engineering work as part of the current upgrade plan, almost every weekend some lines are closed.
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury is an area of central London between Euston Road and Holborn, developed by the Russell family in the 17th and 18th centuries into a fashionable residential area. It is notable for its array of garden squares,[1] literary connections (exemplified by the Bloomsbury Group) and numerous cultural, educational and healthcare institutions. While Bloomsbury was not the first area of London to have acquired a formal square, Bloomsbury Square, laid out in 1660 by Thomas Wriothesley, 4th Earl of Southampton as Southampton Square, was the first square to be named as such.[2]
Bloomsbury is home to the University of London's central bodies and departments, including the Senate House Library and School of Advanced Study, and several of its colleges, including University College London, Birkbeck, the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, the School of Pharmacy and the School of Oriental and African Studies. Numerous healthcare institutions are located in Bloomsbury, including the British Medical Association, Great Ormond Street Hospital, the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, University College Hospital and the Royal London Hospital for Integrated Medicine. The British Museum and the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art are also located in the area.
Bloomsbury comes under the authority of the London Borough of Camden, and is in the Parliamentary constituency of Holborn and St Pancras.
Mayfair
Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today (from 1686 until it was banned in that location in 1764). Until 1686, the May Fair was held in Haymarket, and after 1764, it moved to Fair Field in Bow because the well-to-do residents of the area felt the fair lowered the tone of the neighbourhood.[1]
Mayfair was anciently part of the parish of St Martin in the Fields, and became part of St George Hanover Square in 1724. The new parish stretched to Bond Street in the southern part of Mayfair and almost to Regent Street north of Conduit Street. The northern boundary was Oxford Street and the southern boundary fell short of Piccadilly. The parish continued west of Mayfair into Hyde Park and then south to include Belgravia and other areas.
The old telephone district of MAYfair (later 629) changed east of Bond Street to REGent (later 734). Most of the area was first developed between the mid 17th century and the mid 18th century as a fashionable residential district, by a number of landlords, the most important of them being the Dukes of Westminster, the Grosvenor family. The Rothschild family bought up large areas of Mayfair in the 19th century. The freehold of a large section of Mayfair also belongs to the Crown Estate.
The district is now mainly commercial, with many offices in converted houses and new buildings, including major corporate headquarters, a concentration of hedge funds, real estate businesses and many different embassy offices, namely the U.S.'s large office taking up all the west side of Grosvenor Square.[2] Rents are among the highest in London and the world. There remains a substantial quantity of residential property as well as some exclusive shopping and London's largest concentration of luxury hotels and many restaurants. Buildings in Mayfair include both the Canadian High Commission and the United States embassy in Grosvenor Square, the Royal Academy of Arts, The Handel House Museum, the Grosvenor House Hotel, Claridge's and The Dorchester.
Whitechapel
Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located 3.4 miles (5.5 km) east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the south. The resident population are of varied ethnic origin, primarily Bengali. It is notably best known for being the location of the infamous Jack the Ripper murders in the late 1880s. The murderer was never identified, although rumours suggest over 100 names.
Canary Wharf
Canary Wharf is a major business district located in London, United Kingdom. It is one of London's two main financial centres, alongside the traditional City of London, and contains many of the UK's tallest buildings, including the second-tallest (and tallest completed), One Canada Square.[1][2] Canary Wharf contains around 14,000,000 square feet (1,300,000 m2) of office and retail space, of which around 7,900,000 square feet (730,000 m2) is owned by Canary Wharf Group.[3] Around 90,000 people work in Canary Wharf[4] and it is home to the world or European headquarters of numerous major banks, professional services firms and media organisations including Barclays, Citigroup, Clifford Chance, Credit Suisse, HSBC, KPMG, MetLife, Skadden, State Street and Thomson Reuters.[5]
Canary Wharf is located in the West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs in the Borough of Tower Hamlets in East London. The West India Docks once formed part of the busiest port in the world.[6] After the docks were closed in 1980 the British Government adopted various policies to stimulate the redevelopment of the area, including through the creation of the London Docklands Development Corporation in 1981 and granting the Isle of Dogs Enterprise Zone status in 1982.[6] In 1987 the Canadian company Olympia and York agreed to construct a major office development on the Isle of Dogs, with construction commencing in 1988.[6]
London Docklands
Docklands is the semi-official name for an area in east and southeast London, England. It forms part of the boroughs of Southwark, Tower Hamlets, Newham and Greenwich. The docks were formerly part of the Port of London, at one time the world's largest port. They have now been redeveloped principally for commercial and residential use. The name London Docklands was used for the first time in a government report on redevelopment plans in 1971 but has since become virtually universally adopted. It also created conflict between the new and old communities of the London Docklands.
West End of London
The West End of London (more commonly referred to as simply the West End) is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment (including the commercial West End theatres). Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross.[1] For strategic planning the area is identified as one of two international centres in the London Plan.[2]
The West End is the most expensive location in the world to rent office space.[3][4]
East End of London
The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary.[1] For the purposes of his book, East End Past, Richard Tames regards the area as coterminous with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets: however, he acknowledges that this narrow definition excludes parts of southern Hackney, such as Shoreditch and Hoxton, which many would regard as belonging to the East End.[2] Others again, such as Alan Palmer, would extend the area across the Lea to include parts of the London Borough of Newham;[3] while parts of the London Borough of Waltham Forest are also sometimes included. It is universally agreed, however, that the East End is to be distinguished from East London, which covers a much wider area.
Use of the term East End in a pejorative sense began in the late 19th century,[4] as the expansion of the population of London led to extreme overcrowding throughout the area and a concentration of poor people and immigrants.[5] The problems were exacerbated with the construction of St Katharine Docks (1827)[6] and the central London railway termini (1840–1875) that caused the clearance of former slums and rookeries, with many of the displaced people moving into the East End. Over the course of a century, the East End became synonymous with poverty, overcrowding, disease and criminality.[3]
The East End developed rapidly during the 19th century. Originally it was an area characterised by villages clustered around the City walls or along the main roads, surrounded by farmland, with marshes and small communities by the River, serving the needs of shipping and the Royal Navy. Until the arrival of formal docks, shipping was required to land its goods in the Pool of London, but industries related to construction, repair, and victualling of ships flourished in the area from Tudor times. The area attracted large numbers of rural people looking for employment. Successive waves of foreign immigration began with Huguenot refugees creating a new extramural suburb in Spitalfields in the 17th century.[7] They were followed by Irish weavers,[8] Ashkenazi Jews[9] and, in the 20th century, Bangladeshis.[10] Many of these immigrants worked in the clothing industry. The abundance of semi- and unskilled labour led to low wages and poor conditions throughout the East End. This brought the attentions of social reformers during the mid-18th century and led to the formation of unions and workers associations at the end of the century. The radicalism of the East End contributed to the formation of the Labour Party, and Emmeline Pankhurst based campaigns for women's votes in the area.
Official attempts to address the overcrowded housing began at the beginning of the 20th century under the London County Council. The Second World War devastated much of the East End, with its docks, railways and industry forming a continual target, leading to dispersal of the population to new suburbs and new housing being built in the 1950s.[3] The closure of the last of the East End docks in the Port of London in 1980 created further challenges and led to attempts at regeneration and the formation of the London Docklands Development Corporation. The Canary Wharf development, improved infrastructure, and the Olympic Park[11] mean that the East End is undergoing further change, but some parts continue to contain some of the worst poverty in Britain.[12]
Chinatown, London
The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street. It contains a number of Chinese restaurants, bakeries, supermarkets, souvenir shops, and other Chinese-run businesses.
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