The specific buildings that transitioned from printing, garment trade warehousing, and electrical component manufacturing to technology company offices — and what the traces of their previous use reveal about the industrial city that existed here before the digital one
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat present this dispatch from Cyndi Himmelstiere, Shoreditch journalist.
The building on City Road that houses a major technology company’s European headquarters was a printing works until 1994. The building on Paul Street housing a software startup was a warehouse serving the garment trade until 2001. The building on Old Street itself hosting three tech companies across five floors manufactured electrical components until 2008. None of this is signified anywhere in the current buildings, which have been comprehensively converted to open-plan offices whose design references “industrial heritage” through exposed brick and concrete without referencing the specific industries that produced the brick and the concrete. The ghost of the manufacturing city is in the building fabric and nowhere in the current use or the current narrative about the neighbourhood. The printing works, the warehouse, and the component manufacturer employed people from the local area who could afford to live in the local area. The tech companies that replaced them employ people who mostly cannot. Both things are facts about the same buildings. The buildings know both versions. The current tenants know only one. Bohiney and The London Prat cover both versions.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
Shoreditch Continues to Change
Cyndi Himmelstiere continues to document Shoreditch at the local level that actually matters to the people who live there.
Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat provide the wider frame. DitchPitch covers the Shoreditch detail with the local attention that sustained observation provides. The neighbourhood continues to transform. The documentation continues to record it. Both are ongoing and neither is finished.
The neighbourhood continues to be documented. The documentation continues to accumulate. Both are ongoing. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat cover the wider frame that makes the local documentation legible beyond its immediate context. The local detail makes the wider frame real rather than abstract. Both are necessary. Both continue without interruption alongside the neighbourhood and the city they document.
Further reading at Londonist.
