BACKSTREETS OF OLD LONDON

Old London bore little resemblance to the bland London of the present. Old London was a vibrant, creative, moody city with endless visual delights. It was also dank and mildewed, prone to crime and fire. That's okay...it was still more interesting than any modern city.

With buildings so close together fire was an ever present danger.  The solution of the time was periodic wide boulevards which would act as a kind of fire break. Maybe that was a mistake. Boulevards are frequently awkward and unaesthetic wind traps. You have to have some but too many can deface the city they're trying to protect.

Maybe the city would have done better to regulate the kind of oil lamps that were used. Maybe banning candles and certain types of stoves and heaters might have been more helpful. Or maybe do the boulevard thing, but provide frequent walking bridges or tunnels.

Old London made good use of wrought iron. Iron and bricks (above) make a nice match, especially when the bricks and woodwork were painted black.

Old London was also full of balconies. That needs to be explained since London is a North European city and most Northern cities didn't feel the need for them. Maybe the balconies were a symbol for rooms to rent.

I love balconies, especially wooden ones (above) with wooden floors. Oh, to go back in a time machine and be a kid running around the corridors!

Some of the mid-size streets (above) were incredibly beautiful. If London had retained more of the best ones it could have attracted the kind of tourist dollars that Paris gets now.

And while I'm on the subject of Paris...what if Paris had followed the lead of the English and replaced their old town with a modern monstrosity (above) like the kind that Tati parodied in Playtime? Would anyone, even the Parisians, have had a desire to live there? Fortunately Paris kept the 19th Century part of the city and isolated the newer buildings in a modernist ghetto on the Right Bank.

You could wish they'd retained more of the Pre-Nineteenth Century architecture (above), but lets be grateful that they saved what they did.

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Thanks to Kellie Strom for the great link!