Tag Archives: Street

I absolutely adored Bricklane. I don’t want to gush too much but let’s just say I used the words ‘vibe’ and ‘love’ a lot. Plus my stylish friend Jake, his boyfriend Pedro and friend made for excellent company on the Sunday afternoon we had lunch at the Spitalfields market, shopped at the Upmarket and made our way to Bricklane.

Street sign- in English, and Bengali

It’s an unlikely amalgamation – the South Asian immigrant community, consisting mainly of Bangladeshis that run the businesses and the masses of hipsters and kooky characters that congregate on Sunday (and other days) to wander around, illegally set up stalls selling vintage wares on the street, visit sample sales, listen to music and drink in the beer gardens/compounds, but strangely enough it works, making Bricklane one of the most sought after neighbourhoods in London.

We traipsed around until we found a cute bar to drink Pimms in, stopped by a couple of shops and sales, bought some sunglasses, listened to a really great band from Argentina that were busking, and checked out all the street art.

The mother and child portrait wasn’t always headless, only when part of the building was broken down. Called Ma o Shishu, and painted by Ben Slow (who paints beautiful romanticized portraits of women), with Joe Deane and Joseph Loughborough, you can view the full piece on his flickr.

The 12-metre crane in Hanbury Street, just off Brick Lane, is by Belgian street artist Roa whose artworks can be found all over London. But the crane is a focal symbol in Bangladeshi culture and was therefore chosen to represent the neighbourhood.