Getting Cultured: London's East End

The walk around London's East End was one of the most interesting assignments I've done through CCA so far. Perhaps because of my inclination toward the arts, street art, and counter culture-esque atmospheres, I found that the East End was right up my alley. When I was in high school, I used to go to Chinatown with my best friend and her mother, who was a curator for several museums, and see museum exhibits on a regular basis. Also located near Chinatown was the Los Angeles Museum of Modern Art, which had for a very long time one of the world's largest exhibits on street art. Additionally, being from a city and going to school in a city, I'm very familiar with street art scenes. This is the background I had going into the walk through the East End, and a little bit of an explanation for why I enjoyed it so much.
It was clear that the East End was populated by a different sort of people than we see around Russell Square and Woburn Place on a daily basis, and even where I work in Southwark. The area was a bit more run down, the shops geared toward certain ethnic minorities, and the art was pervasive. I saw more street art on the buildings and landscapes in the East End than anywhere else so far in London. The "young person culture" was all too prevalent via the alternative coffee shops, bars, clothing stores, etc. I can only imagine what some of the interiors of the apartment complexes look like.
But the whole area wasn't all like this. As the walk prescribed, I saw some of the restored architecture and history of the area that is described in the British Experience Programme handbook. The amount of galleries around made me yearn for days past, and I wished I had more time to go into the galleries than I had allotted for the excursion. The architecture though was wonderful. It was refreshing to see and read about the buildings that are so much older than most of the areas I've spent an exorbitant amount of time in, like LA and DC.
As I made my way through the walk, I was particularly interested in spying the Foundry, since the information in the BEP handbook said the clocks for major buildings were molded there. Additionally, the Jack the Ripper territory was really cool (and...scary?) to go through, since I've read a couple books on the murderer. As the walk came to its conclusion, I was pleased and thankful that this was one of our assignments because so much of the culture resonated with me.

Until next time,
Danny