This Is London
Taken on 20 July 2019 from Golden Lane Estate on the roof of Great Arthur House, which was the tallest residential building in London when it was completed in 1957.
(Top, looking west, with the BT Tower in the distance; from left, Crescent House; looking southeast, toward the City; looking south-southwest, featuring two of the Barbican’s residential towers and St. Paul’s Cathedral.)
Pigeons bathing in a puddle in Fortune Street Park, London.
‘The Draw of the New City-States’
“London and New York, with roughly the same populations, have become booming city-states that reflect 21st-century openness and fluidity, but also the skewed economics and growing inequalities of a world where finance has outflanked the law and the global rich find ways to game a system that holds the majority in its grip.
“In London during these boom times, the disparities can feel obscene. Still, London does the public sphere, like bike schemes, road surfaces and the subway, much better than New York. It is a European city, after all. But it sits in a middling nation well past its zenith. New York does power, directness and steak a lot better than London. It races and churns. London carries on.”
— Roger Cohen, The New York Times, 15 Aug. 2014
Some News
I’ll be moving to London later this year as The Times expands its editing and production efforts overseas. Same home page, new time zone. More importantly, it puts me, the Gray Lady and the other lady in my life in the same place at the same time.