'Publicity invades even the asphalt pavement. It relies on the frequent rain and the habit the people have over here of looking down as they walk. When the weather is fine, dust dulls the surface and nothing much is visible. But as soon as a shower has washed it clean the characters appear, letters blossom under your feet and you find yourself walking on gigantic posters. In this way, the stone flags of London are made as productive as fields of wheat.'
Showing posts with label pavements. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pavements. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 May 2012
Pavement Advertisements
Here's a new one on me - pavement advertising in the West End, 1856 (as recounted by French visitor Francis Wey, 'A Frenchman sees the English in the Fifties', transl. 1932). What is he talking about? Could be pavement chalking, but that would hardly work after wet weather. Anyone heard of anything similar?
Sunday, 18 March 2007
London Pavements
LONDON PAVEMENTS
Books by foreign visitors often are the best reports of London life, as they tend to remark on things native Londoners would have taken for granted. Take this from W. O'Daniel, an American unimpressed by 1850s London streets (whose book I recently acquired ... more excerpts may follow):- "Judge then my disappointment on entering London to see no signs of that opulence so much talked of abroad; wherever I turn I am presented with a gloomy solemnity in the houses, streets and the inhabitants; none of that beautiful gilding which makes a principal ornament in Chinese architecture. The streets of Nankin are sometimes strewed with goldleaf: very different are those of London; in the midst of their pavements a great lazy puddle moves muddily along; heavy laden machines with wheels of unwieldy thickness crowd up every passage; so that a stranger instead of finding time for observation is often happy if he has time to escape from being crushed to pieces. The side-walks are exceedingly low and very narrow. Oxford, Regent, Cannon and a few other streets are the only exceptions. I have frequently seen brewers' teams and others come within one foot of the store windows, and have been obliged to jump into a store door to escape being struck. To walk two or three abreast in the city is perfectly impossible. In very few streets is there any protection to the curb and consequently the hubs of the wheels, especially when passing other teams, extends several inches over the side-walk. "
Books by foreign visitors often are the best reports of London life, as they tend to remark on things native Londoners would have taken for granted. Take this from W. O'Daniel, an American unimpressed by 1850s London streets (whose book I recently acquired ... more excerpts may follow):- "Judge then my disappointment on entering London to see no signs of that opulence so much talked of abroad; wherever I turn I am presented with a gloomy solemnity in the houses, streets and the inhabitants; none of that beautiful gilding which makes a principal ornament in Chinese architecture. The streets of Nankin are sometimes strewed with goldleaf: very different are those of London; in the midst of their pavements a great lazy puddle moves muddily along; heavy laden machines with wheels of unwieldy thickness crowd up every passage; so that a stranger instead of finding time for observation is often happy if he has time to escape from being crushed to pieces. The side-walks are exceedingly low and very narrow. Oxford, Regent, Cannon and a few other streets are the only exceptions. I have frequently seen brewers' teams and others come within one foot of the store windows, and have been obliged to jump into a store door to escape being struck. To walk two or three abreast in the city is perfectly impossible. In very few streets is there any protection to the curb and consequently the hubs of the wheels, especially when passing other teams, extends several inches over the side-walk. "
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