please empty your brain below

Barbican - gentrification 60s style.

70 years on, politicians still think you can win a war with air power alone.
The Barbican has a deficiency that it shares with the 'halt with a decent-sized car park' that you described on Sunday last - it has a shortage of signs.

OK, there are a few, but they are often confusing as to which direction is meant. The many different levels on an irregularly-shaped site add to the confusion.
As I type this, I am heading up to London with my two youngest to partake in today's commemorations and displays.
My father was an office worker in the City during the war. The men were on a roster to stay in the office overnight where they slept on camp beds. When the air-raid sirens wailed, the men had to go up on the roof and put out any incendiary bombs before the fire took hold. I wish I knew more, but he rarely spoke about his experiences - and now it's about 30 years too late to ask him.
I work across the road from the current incarnation of Paternoster Square, so thanks for the heads-up that there are things going on today.

The present layout may not be to everyone's taste, but it does have the re-sited Temple Bar and the analemma sundial (see discussion on the solstice a week ago), and is a far more pleasant environment than its predecessor.
The "private land" signs sprouted in October 2011 after the owners of the land got an injunction to prevent the "Occupy London" peace camp of - hence the occupation of St Paul's churchyard instead.

The steeple of Christ Church in Newgate is, like the church tower in Wood Street, a private residence (on twelve floors!).
Christs Hospital School took over the site of the monastery of which the original church was a part during the reign of Edward VI, (after whom the street is named), and the pupils still parade from there to the Guildhall in their Tudor-era uniforms every year, although the school itself moved to Sussex in 1902.

The King Edward Building that now occupies the site was built for the GPO and named after Edward VII - it is a happy coincidence that it is on King Edward Street.
Had a look online at some postwar pre-TheBarbican photos - yeah, that area was certainly razed to the ground.

Whilst I am no fan of brutalist architecture (I dislike the colour of aged 60s concrete) Barbican at least is a good example of it, and not much was lost in building it.

One thing that does work is the flowery balconies - it must be the contrast.
DG, another fascinating post but I must take issue with one comment. Yes, in terms of material, historical and architectural damage it was probably the worst night of the blitz but far from the worst in terms of human suffering. A look at www.cwgc.org will show that over the night of 29/30 December 1940 around 200 civilians died in Inner London. However far worse was the raid of 10/11 May 1941, the Luftwaffe's final thrust before Hitler turned east, when approaching 1500 died. I looked at the individual list and what so saddens me is that 44 toddlers between the ages of 2 and 5 died, kids that would mostly still be alive and fit in their late 70s today but for that night. When we grumble about the incompetence of, say, rail replacement bus services this Christmas period, we need to be thankful we did not have to endure the Blitz, as my mother did in Battersea all those years ago.
Terrific post DG, thanks.
My Mum worked in the city in one of the main post offices during the war. She never wanted to talk about the blitz or any of the subsequent bombing except to say how horrific the 'doodlebugs' were and how people would hear them come over and when the engine cut out just wait and pray that it fell somewhere else. I don't think that many of us now can imaging the sheer horror of what that generation went through.
My dad saw it happen from Lee in SE London. He said you could smell it from there (as you often could, especially when the docks were hit apparently).
I fear the people of Syria will have had more recent experience of their towns and cities being destroyed by bombing, with rough estimates suggesting that about three times as many civilians have already died there as were killed in the UK during WWII.










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