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A diverse population comes and goes near Stamford Hill, Hackney.
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Soldiers in the service of Jesus Christ, men and boys of the Nigerian Cherubim and Seraphim Church of Zion Imole in Hackney march up to the collection box to put in their offerings.
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Home is where the harbor is for houseboat residents along the latticework of East London's canals. This picnic unfolds by Hertford Union Canal, near the site of the 2012 Olympics.
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Pearly Queens Jackie Murphy, daughter Teresa Watts, niece Sharon Crow, and cousin Phyllis Broadbent sing in a Leyton pub. The Pearlies are a traditional Cockney charitable organization.
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Living on the rough edges, but getting by, John Cook, aka John the Poacher, hunts rabbits in nearby marshes and sells them from his “office” in the Anchor and Hope pub. “There's nowhere else in London I'd rather be than Hackney,” he says.
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An older generation favors the Mecca Bingo clubs in Hackney, where a pint sets you back two quid while you wait for the numbers to line up. By any measure—unemployment, income, life expectancy—most East London boroughs sit at the bottom of the barrel.
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Immigrant Song
Shoppers and strollers crowd Whitechapel Road and its bazaar-like markets in the East End borough of Tower Hamlets, where one-third of the population is Bengali. -
Immigrant Song
Worshippers offer prayers at a funeral service in the Turkish Süleymaniye Mosque in Shoreditch. “Our neighbors accept us and see us as one of them,” says director Huseyin Hakan Yildirim. -
Immigrant Song
Sibel Beliczynska, a Cypriot with two children, is unemployed, on benefits, and looking for work. -
Immigrant Song
The A1 barbershop on Commercial Road caters mostly to customers from Pakistan and Bangladesh. -
“The East End of London is a world in itself,” wrote Charles Dickens. The constellation of skyscrapers in Canary Wharf's financial district is a world within that world, built from docklands abandoned in the 1960s, when shipping moved downriver to deeper water.
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On Saturdays, East London's newest arrivals—the young and affluent—linger in trendy cafés and trawl the stalls of Broadway Market. Formerly a locus of garden-variety fruit and veg stands, the market now offers eco-friendly bamboo socks, loin of venison, and hand-sliced smoked salmon.
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Young and Hip
At day's end young professionals in the Canary Wharf financial district relax over drinks. -
Young and Hip
The Joiners Arms Gay Night takes place at Cordy House, an event space in Shoreditch. -
Young and Hip
The upper end of Brick Lane is the hangout for a young, hip crowd who spill onto the street on weekends and at night; the lower end is a conglomeration of Indian restaurants, most owned by Bengalis. -
Young and Hip
Many of the warehouses and factories of Hackney Wick, a legacy of East London's industrial past, have been turned into studios and homes for young creative types like Conrad Steen and Katie Lambert. Commercial conversion of such spaces has been accelerated by the nearby presence of the site of the 2012 Summer Olympics. -
In Haggerston the VLC Community Centre for Refugees from Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia offers, among other services, advice on benefits, housing, and job applications, as well as English lessons, a lunch club for elderly members, and classes in tai chi.
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The indigo light of dusk softens the hard landscape of a street off Brick Lane, formerly a Jewish neighborhood, now an area with many immigrants from South Asia.
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