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London shops: farewell to Franks
When in Golders Green Road recently, I noticed that Franks has closed - another iconic specialist shop gone to the high street in the sky.
This double-fronted lingerie emporium was more an institution than a shop, with every counter presided over by slightly vulture-like, but immaculately groomed ladies of a certain age, all possessed with an unerring instinct for knowing your bra size. And if they didn’t, they’d have you measured and underwired before you could say “34 B”.
Brilliant for bras
Unused to this no-nonsense, hands-on approach, some more timid shoppers accustomed to buying ill-fitting, chain store bras found the Franks experience a bit of an ordeal. But the slight sense of trepidation I felt when shopping there seemed somehow right to me. I also liked the handwritten receipts and the “Are you being Served?” feel of having lots of different counters, but just one main till.
Lingerie shops, albeit infinitely inferior ones, have also been closing down left, right and centre where I live in Crouch End. I guess there’s always M&S (yawn), or La Senza (all that padding!), but for the discerning bra-buyer Leibergs in Temple Fortune is a good bet …
London restuarants: Maxwell's hammered
Another landmark
of my youth has disappeared. Maxwell’s in Hampstead was a survivor of the first
flush of enthusiasm for burgers in the ‘70s. It was an airy cavern of a place,
which seemed to stretch forever into the recesses of NW3. The tables were
covered in gingham tablecloths and melted wax candles in bottles that passed
for chic in those days.
Sophisticated relish
The hamburgers were good quality but I never developed a deep love of the burger and so my visits there whilst enjoyable were intermittent. However, the pickle tray was fabulous with the ubiquitous Bick’s Canadian relish consisting of a trinity of sweet red tomato relish, a sweet corn pickle coloured the most lurid irradiated yellow and an equally garish cucumber relish tasting of spearmint toothpaste. Divine! Notice how the American credentials of the place were reinforced by the use of the word “relish” for pickle. They also served filter coffee at a time when Nescafe was class.
Red and dead
Well, alas no more and the familiar red-fronted restaurant is bereft of signage or any signs of the existence of the burger bar. Maxwell’s was caught between McDonald’s or Burger King and the new chains of “The Really Posh Burger Company” and “The Incredibly Exclusive, Overpriced Burger Bar”. A landmark goes and local distinctiveness takes another body blow.
London colleges: Kingsway College crushed
Alan Dein says goodbye to a pre-slacker monument
That brutalist slab of concrete which was the original Kingsway College on the corner of Grays Inn Road and Sidmouth Street WC1 is being smashed down as I write this. Only the facade on Grays Inn Road remains, and that's hidden behind tarpaulin.
Let's face it, no great loss to most lovers of urban architecture, but the place is historically very important. I never went there, but friends and their friends did, and particularly during the 70s and early 80s it became a hotbed for artistic, unruly and creative pre-slacker lifeforms.
English Heritage reject
And just for the record, the site was formerly a Victorian School called Prospect Terrace which was destroyed during WW2. Apparently, the concrete ediface of the post-white heat of education that was the Kingsway College building nearly achieved an English Heritage listing - but obviously even those posh berks were unimpressed.
So stick Kingsway College in London-RIP, even though the institution lives on, but in name only...
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| Message: | 1/1 |
| Date and time: | 12/11/2007 at 23:25:45 |
| Sender: | Jonathan |
| I've been resident in Canada for the last 2 years and come back for a visit to London every 6 months or so. Being away for a time really makes you notice how fast things change. It's now October 07 , since Feruary, a new huge skyscraper has sprouted up over Liverpool street station (where did that come from?), half of Tottenham has been rebuilt (a good thing too), The mechanics on the corner of Rostrevor Avenue and Tottenham High Road appears to have moved, now why coudn't that have happened when I lived there. Which brings me to my next point. Where are all the petrol stations? I'm a last minute filler upper, but there is literally no where left to buy petrol anymore. I would estimate at least 3 filling stations have gone in Enfield alone in the last 6 months. I wouldn't even think about driving into central London with less than quater of a tank. | |
