Me and my camera in my home town, my capital city, my london
Another week of tube tales – transient undeground encounters with strangers makes my brain turned detective…what are scary clowns doing lurking in tunnels? Why has a decorated solider traded in his rifle for a zoom lens? Why is a grown man vomitting into a bin? Is a daughter sat next to the father she never knew, both oblivious to each other’s proximity?
The above shots however show a very real horror story that requires no interpretation. This is just one hideous London moment at Oxford Street tube station as commuters wait in masse to get crammed onto tube trains. They could walk five minutes to Bond St and avoid this hellzone but in the great British tradition, if you see people waiting in a queue, join them.
The reason it is so congested is that they have closed Tottenham Court Road station to build the cross rail overground network. This will ultimately ease the crowds descending into the Underground which as you can see is at busting point.
The real tragedy is that in the process of facilitating journeys for workers to get into the centre of town they have destroyed half of what made Soho and the West End great. All the places that gave it its character such as The Astoria and Tin Pan Alley are being systematically removed to make way for New London.
But to be able to live in central New London is no longer financially viable for most normal earners. They have already been pushed out to the outskirts and beyond. If councils had protected their residents and installed legislation to keep rent and property affordable instead of allowing the global rich to turn them into glorified safe deposit boxes they wouldnt need to build a rail system to herd them in from the suburbs as they would be living in the centre and going to all the places that have been knocked down in the process..progress, don’t you just love it!