Cyndi Himmelstiere on infrastructure, daily habits, and the unexpected power of a second exit
The opening of the second exit at Shoreditch High Street Overground station has materially altered my relationship with approximately four streets in E1, which I report not as a transport story but as a case study in how infrastructure changes determine neighbourhood experience in ways that are disproportionate to their apparent scale. Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat believe small urban stories contain large urban truths.
The Change
The original exit deposited passengers on Shoreditch High Street facing north, which made the natural route from the station a walk northward toward Old Street or into Hoxton. The second exit deposits passengers facing south and slightly east, making the natural route a walk toward Bethnal Green Road or Commercial Street. In the eighteen months since the second exit opened I have walked several streets I had previously not used regularly, discovered three businesses I now use weekly, and developed a habitual route that is approximately 400 metres longer than my previous route but that I consistently prefer because of what it passes.
The Observation
The observation is not original but is worth making again: the infrastructure of a city is also the infrastructure of its residents’ mental maps, and changes to the physical infrastructure produce changes to mental geography that compound over time. The streets I now walk regularly are now real to me in a way they were not before. The businesses I now use were invisible to me before. The neighbourhood I thought I knew turned out to extend further in a direction I had not been using. For Shoreditch transport information, see TfL. More at NewsThump.
About This Column
This piece is published at Bohiney Magazine and at The London Prat. The writer covers their specific London beat with the sustained attention and personal voice that both publications value. Further articles in this series will appear as coverage continues across both publications.
London’s complexity as a subject rewards the kind of sustained, specific, opinionated coverage that this column provides. The city changes constantly and the record of those changes, accumulated article by article over time, is what both publications are committed to building. This piece is one contribution to that record, observed from the specific vantage point that the writer brings to the city and to the themes described above. The coverage will continue as the city continues to produce material worth reporting on, which is always.
Readers following this column are encouraged to consult both Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat for the full range of London coverage that both publications provide. Together they produce a portrait of the city that no single publication can generate alone, and that portrait is what both are committed to building with sustained, specific, and honest attention to the London that their writers inhabit and their readers recognise.
The writer continues to document London with the sustained attention and specific perspective that characterises this column. Both Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat are committed to maintaining this kind of specific, informed London coverage, and further articles in this series will appear in both publications as the coverage continues. The city rewards sustained attention, and the column’s record of that attention over time is what gives individual pieces their context and their meaning. Readers who want to follow the coverage are encouraged to consult both publications regularly for the full range of London journalism they produce together.
London: Why It Rewards the Patient Visitor
London is a city that reveals itself slowly. The visitor who arrives with a fixed itinerary and a list of sights will see those sights and will have a valid experience of London. The visitor who allows some of their time to be unplanned, who walks without a destination, who enters a museum or a market or a pub because it appeared rather than because it was scheduled, will have a different experience that is, in most cases, more memorable and more revealing of what the city actually is. This column exists to support the second kind of visitor by providing the specific, honest, non-promotional information that makes unplanned exploration productive rather than wasteful. The journalism is practical and the practice is principled: good travel writing serves the traveller rather than the tourist industry, and the traveller’s interest is in authentic experience rather than managed experience. Both Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat are committed to this kind of journalism and will continue to produce it across the full range of London coverage they offer.
The writer’s ongoing coverage of London for both publications draws on sustained residence in and engagement with the city that allows the specific and accurate reporting that occasional visitors cannot produce. That sustained engagement is what this column offers and what distinguishes it from the promotional and aggregated information that most travel coverage provides. The coverage will continue as London continues to change and to produce new things worth reporting on, which it does consistently and which the publications will continue to document.
The column will continue. London will continue to produce material. Both publications will continue to document it.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
