| Author |
Message |
Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 5:14 pm
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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Charles Riggs wrote:
| Quote: | Are towns with a town centre only some of those founded before 1800
(I'm guessing on the year), it being where the town square is? I'm
specifically thinking of some of the old towns in New England and some
of the very old towns in Europe. How many cities have what could be
called a city centre? Most don't, I'd say, unless one claims that
where city hall or the main court house is located defines where the
city centre is.
Where is a city's centre and must a city have one?
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I personally think of the center of New York as being Bryant Park, but I
wouldn't expect anyone to agree with that, although I suppose I would
expect anyone to agree with that general location. That's within the
very large area that all would agree serves as New York's present-day city
center (Midtown) in a broader sense than you seem to mean -- New York's
Midtown corresponding functionally to the "downtowns", "city centers", or
"center city"s of some other cities. It is far from the historical
city center (the financial/governmental southern tip of Manhattan). I
would guess that the historical center point, if there ever was one,
might have been City Hall or present-day City Hall Park. Perhaps it was
Union Square at a later period, which still is an important point of
differentiation.
I never felt that Chicago had a precise center. It has two central
districts, I'd say, the Loop and the commercial area north of the River
around where Michigan Avenue and Rush Street and places like that are (a
subset of what used to be called "da Near Nort'").
Seattle has a central district (downtown Seattle, of uncertain
definition), which is not the same as its so-called "Central District"
(which is the name of the neighborhood where the white people in
Seattle have segregated black people into). Perhaps Pioneer Square is
supposed to function as a center point, but I'm really not sure. It
occurs to me that the bizarre (even by Queens standards) address numbering
system used in Seattle might assume that there's a particular center point
(near the Sound, and wherever you are right before you go too far south so
that "South" streets start occurring).
Doesn't London use Charing Cross
as the basis for its numbering system? Isn't Trafalgar Square the center
point of present-day London? Discuss.
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Graeme Thomas
Guest
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 5:41 pm
Post subject: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe |
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In article <4e9881dgr2tmjs8412m78ac7u4k0kcsh2c@4ax.com>, "Aokay (David
G. Bryce)" <U.Name.It@spammers.com> writes
| Quote: | Not so fast my man. Your two by four starts out as a real 2" x 4"
but then it is planed.
I would guess that European lumber is sold the same way. Is a 5 x
10 (or whatever it is called) really 5 x 10?
|
I am by no means an expert on these matters, but I understand that, in
the UK, a two by four is the unplaned size, while a hypothetical 5x10
would be the planed size. Hence, a metric two by four is actually 4cm
by 8cm, and sold as such.
| Quote: | BTW, Canada is officially metric but lumber is still cut and sold
the old way. Construction is construction.
|
Much the same applies to the UK. Apart from a few things (beer and road
distances being the main ones) most things are metric. But, if an
imperial size is used as a description, rather than a measurement, it
can still be used. We still can have 12" pizzas, for example.
When I last asked my nieces about this (when they were about 10) they
said that they were fairly comfortable with both sets of units, but
changed depending on the audience. Amongst their school friends they
used metri units, but they used imperial units when talking to "old
people". I am old, according to them.
--
Graeme Thomas |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 8:43 pm
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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Tony Cooper wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 13 May 2005 15:14:06 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net
wrote:
I never felt that Chicago had a precise center. It has two central
districts, I'd say, the Loop
The Loop is the center. Precisely.
and the commercial area
Assuming you mean "stores" when you say "commercial", shopping areas
are never the center. They are only the current place that people
go. State Street was once that kind of center. CPS, Fields,
Wieboldt's, Goldblatt's, and all the other stores were once anchored
on State.
|
I dunno, Coop. It felt to me like it had a centrality that was actually
missing from the Loop. Maybe the city changed in the 20-odd years since
you've been in Orlando, and I'd note that Erk has, during that period,
also been away from Chicago (and on the Peninsula).
| Quote: | north of the River
A genuine OY!. If you mean the Chicago River, then say it. If you
describe just the river, then don't capitalize it.
|
Is there another river in central/interior Chicago? IAWTBC. I'd write
"the Lake" for Lake Michigan.
| Quote: | around where Michigan Avenue and Rush Street and places like that are (a
subset of what used to be called "da Near Nort'").
There is/was the Gold Coast, the Near North, and Rush Street. All
separate and distinct. Only New Yawkers would think of them as
subsets of anything.
|
You serious? I thought that Rush Street and the Gold Coast were parts of
"the Near North", as it was traditionally defined. Otherwise wouldn't you
have to carve those things out of the Near North, awkwardly, the way
various little communities are carved out of Los Angeles the city?
Nowadays, I think, there's not much usage of "the Near North", and I
think it's at best as you say -- it's a residual area that doesn't belong
to other more specifically-named areas. But I thought that you had
explained that it was all "Near North" back in your yout'. Didn't you
tell us you lived in (on?) the Gold Coast as well as "Near North", and at
the same time, back when you were in B-school?
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
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| Posted: Fri May 13, 2005 11:01 pm
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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On 13 May 2005, Charles Riggs wrote
| Quote: | I think it is an interesting question. Not all towns or cities
have a city centre, I think we can agree; LA stands out as a
shining example of one that doesn't.
Are towns with a town centre only some of those founded before
1800 (I'm guessing on the year), it being where the town square
is? I'm specifically thinking of some of the old towns in New
England and some of the very old towns in Europe. How many cities
have what could be called a city centre? Most don't, I'd say,
unless one claims that where city hall or the main court house is
located defines where the city centre is.
Where is a city's centre and must a city have one?
|
I think in England "city/town centre" generally means "commercial area
of the subject town" -- the CBD, as it's often referred to in North
American[1] -- rather than a single point of reference.
People here in Basingstoke refer to the "town centre", but the acutal
*true* centre -- a market square, where the road changes name from
"London Street" (a continuation of London Road) to "Winchester Street"
(continued by Winchester Road) -- is a sub-area of the town centre
known as "the top of town".
[1]A former town planner speaks: I've always been uneasy with the way
that this piece of jargon was inserted by planning departments into
common usage, as I feel it reduces what should always be discussed as a
three-dimensional "place" to a two-dimensional zoning district. ("CBD"
isn't widely used in English town planning circles.)
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canada for 30 years; S England since 1982.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van) |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 12:08 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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On Fri, 13 May 2005 15:14:06 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net>
wrote:
| Quote: | I never felt that Chicago had a precise center. It has two central
districts, I'd say, the Loop
|
The Loop is the center. Precisely.
| Quote: | and the commercial area
|
Assuming you mean "stores" when you say "commercial", shopping areas
are never the center. They are only the current place that people
go. State Street was once that kind of center. CPS, Fields,
Wieboldt's, Goldblatt's, and all the other stores were once anchored
on State.
| Quote: | north of the River
|
A genuine OY!. If you mean the Chicago River, then say it. If you
describe just the river, then don't capitalize it.
| Quote: | around where Michigan Avenue and Rush Street and places like that are (a
subset of what used to be called "da Near Nort'").
|
There is/was the Gold Coast, the Near North, and Rush Street. All
separate and distinct. Only New Yawkers would think of them as
subsets of anything.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando FL |
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Ross Howard
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 12:35 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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On Fri, 13 May 2005 15:14:06 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net>
wrought:
| Quote: | Isn't Trafalgar Square the center
point of present-day London? Discuss.
|
The centre point for me is probably -- no joke intended -- Centre
Point (where Oxford Street/Road and Charing Cross/Tottenham Court Road
Road cross) and environs (the Denmark Street guitar shops). Trafalgar
Square is too near the river for me (I'm assuming that everyone agrees
that Sahfuvva River doesn't exist), with too much stuff of importance
and/or interest north of it for it to be dead centre. For people who
live in central London, the famous touristy bits (the Mall, the
Palace, No. 10, St James's Park, the Tower, etc.,) are largely to be
ignored, with the result that Nelson's Column is probably less
relevant to your life than the Lord Nelson pub.
Rider: The above is greatly skewed by personal experience. In all my
years in London I worked only in the West End and lived in West
central (Earls Court, South Ken, Notting Hill) and North centralish
(Belsize Park and Hampstead). If I'd worked in the City and lived in,
say, Islington, or out in the south-eastern sticks (Dulwich or
somewhere) I suspect my perception of the "centre" would have been
well to the east of Centre Point.
--
Ross Howard |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 12:39 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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Tony Cooper wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 13 May 2005 18:43:10 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net
wrote:
You serious? I thought that Rush Street and the Gold Coast were parts of
"the Near North", as it was traditionally defined. Otherwise wouldn't you
have to carve those things out of the Near North, awkwardly, the way
various little communities are carved out of Los Angeles the city?
No, you *live* Near North. You *party* on Rush Street (even if you
drink at a bar that is off-Rush, and *live* or *shop* on the Gold
Coast. The difference between living Near North and on the Gold Coast
is status.
|
Okay, then that's just silly. That's like people in Brooklyn Heights who
write their addresses as "Brooklyn Heights, NY" as though they were in
Queens or something.
| Quote: | I never really lived on the Gold Coast. I had an apartment a couple
of blocks east of Michigan on Superior. I can't tell you the dividing
line, but it would have been baldly presumptuous for me to claim to
have lived on the Gold Coast to anyone that knew the Gold Coast. I
might use it here because it generally describes the area. To a
some-time visitor to Chicago, it's an OK description because it means
I didn't live in Hyde Park or Bridgeport.
|
I hear ya. My second (or third, depending on how you count) apartment in
Chicago was, I've said, in/on the Gold Coast, but I don't think it really
was -- too far west I think. It surprises me that you would consider
something to be too far east to be in/on the Gold Coast (unless you were
underwater), but my understanding of Chicago geography never really got
past the hazy stage.
Okay, according to one web page, the boundaries of the Gold Coast are:
Lake Michigan on the east,
North Avenue on the north,
Oak Street on the south,
and Clark and Rush streets on the west.
I lived on Dearborn a block or two south of Division.
I don't understand that Clark and Rush thing, but another web page puts
the western boundary all the way to LaSalle, which even I know is
ridiculous. Based on your 1960s/1970s perspective, did I live in/on the
Gold Coast?
| Quote: | I also lived Near North on Scott Street near Astor. Gold Coast
residents walked past my apartment on their way to the cleaners or
something like that. My section of Scott Street wasn't Gold Coast in
their mind.
I also lived in Old Town. That one goes both ways: Old Town or Near
North. When I lived there, it was Old Town because it had a special
sort of meaning. Later, when Old Town started to get run down, the
same apartment might be just Near North.
I have a fuzzy idea of the same type of terminology that Manhattanites
might use. I may be wrong about this, but I don't think having an
apartment on the East Side is the same thing as having an apartment on
the Upper East Side. Both are east of the park,
|
No. "The park" (Central Park, AYMT) is only relevant to the Upper East
Side. I mean, yeah, in a sense you're east of Central Park if you're all
the way down at the Second Avenue Deli, but it's silly.
| Quote: | but that word "Upper"
means something to New Yawkers. Right?
|
Sort of, but not exactly. Historically much of the Upper East Side was
part of the village of Nieuw Haarlem (founded by J.J. Lodder's dour
Calvinist forbears). I suspect that changing attitudes towards Harlem led
to a shrinking definition of Harlem and a new "Upper East Side" category,
though I haven't done the research. Today the Upper East Side is seen as
ending on the north at 96th Street, above which is East Harlem and/or
Spanish Harlem.
I guess the bourgeoisie must have liked how "Upper" distinguished them
from the rabble who lived to the south. However, the Upper East Side
always contained lots of working-class subneighborhoods, like the ethnic
German, Hungarian, etc. neighborhoods of Yorkville.
It's even less clear with the Upper West Side. Although a lot of the Upper
West Side was historically bourgeois, for quite a few decades it was
regarded (other than by the insular people who lived there) as a
neighborhood of dubious quality, until a wave of gentrification occurred
beginning in the late 'Seventies.
| Quote: | I would also guess that the boundaries change there, too. An Upper
East Side address might become just an East Side address if the
general nature of the neighborhood changes.
|
I don't think that's actually happened, although the reverse has -- I
think nowadays people on, say, East 97th Street might argue that they're
on the Upper East Side. I've heard that the long-blighted area around
Columbia University has been transformed so radically in the past few
years that it's being called the new Upper West Side or something like
that (it's above the Upper West Side proper).
| Quote: | When I was living in Chicago, there were a lot of changes going on.
Neighborhoods that had become run down were bought up by developers.
Some group would buy all the houses/apartments for several blocks on
some street and start renovating them. You'd find a place that was
high rent and quite nice, and next door on one side would be a
near-slum building and next door on the other side the developer would
be knocking out walls and renovating. To change the image of that
area, it would all-of-a-sudden have a "name". It would be "Delancy
Park" (a made-up name for example's sake). As the developer moved
down the street creating high-rent places from former slum-like
places, the boundary of "Delancy Park" would expand.
|
Sure, that happened all over New York City too.
I get the sense that most of the "Near North" neighborhoods were in
serious decline until about five or ten years ago. |
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Laura F. Spira
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 1:54 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre |
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Ross Howard wrote:
| Quote: | On Fri, 13 May 2005 15:14:06 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net
wrought:
Isn't Trafalgar Square the center
point of present-day London? Discuss.
The centre point for me is probably -- no joke intended -- Centre
Point (where Oxford Street/Road and Charing Cross/Tottenham Court Road
Road cross) and environs (the Denmark Street guitar shops). Trafalgar
Square is too near the river for me (I'm assuming that everyone agrees
that Sahfuvva River doesn't exist), with too much stuff of importance
and/or interest north of it for it to be dead centre. For people who
live in central London, the famous touristy bits (the Mall, the
Palace, No. 10, St James's Park, the Tower, etc.,) are largely to be
ignored, with the result that Nelson's Column is probably less
relevant to your life than the Lord Nelson pub.
Rider: The above is greatly skewed by personal experience. In all my
years in London I worked only in the West End and lived in West
central (Earls Court, South Ken, Notting Hill) and North centralish
(Belsize Park and Hampstead). If I'd worked in the City and lived in,
say, Islington, or out in the south-eastern sticks (Dulwich or
somewhere) I suspect my perception of the "centre" would have been
well to the east of Centre Point.
|
I remember being told as a child that all the measurements of distance
to London were taken from Marble Arch - I have no idea if this is true
but I grew up believing that Marble Arch was bang in the middle of
London, although I was bit puzzled that we called visiting Oxford Street
"going up West". On reflection, this may be the source of some of my
difficulties with direction (hi, Phil!) since I now realise that we were
in fact travelling south eastwards on that journey.
I have no idea where the official centre might be - I shall consult
Daughter who works for Westminster City Council.
Trafalgar Square looks so good these days that it *ought* to be the centre.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email) |
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the Omrud
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 3:30 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre |
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Laura F. Spira spake thusly:
| Quote: | I remember being told as a child that all the measurements of distance
to London were taken from Marble Arch - I have no idea if this is true
but I grew up believing that Marble Arch was bang in the middle of
London, although I was bit puzzled that we called visiting Oxford Street
"going up West". On reflection, this may be the source of some of my
difficulties with direction (hi, Phil!) since I now realise that we were
in fact travelling south eastwards on that journey.
|
I thought the measurements were taken from Charing Cross.
--
David
=====
replace usenet with the |
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Tony Cooper
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 3:34 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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On Fri, 13 May 2005 18:43:10 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net>
wrote:
| Quote: | Tony Cooper wrote:
On Fri, 13 May 2005 15:14:06 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net
wrote:
I never felt that Chicago had a precise center. It has two central
districts, I'd say, the Loop
The Loop is the center. Precisely.
and the commercial area
Assuming you mean "stores" when you say "commercial", shopping areas
are never the center. They are only the current place that people
go. State Street was once that kind of center. CPS, Fields,
Wieboldt's, Goldblatt's, and all the other stores were once anchored
on State.
I dunno, Coop. It felt to me like it had a centrality that was actually
missing from the Loop. Maybe the city changed in the 20-odd years since
you've been in Orlando, and I'd note that Erk has, during that period,
also been away from Chicago (and on the Peninsula).
north of the River
A genuine OY!. If you mean the Chicago River, then say it. If you
describe just the river, then don't capitalize it.
Is there another river in central/interior Chicago? IAWTBC. I'd write
"the Lake" for Lake Michigan.
|
And I would OY! you.
| Quote: | around where Michigan Avenue and Rush Street and places like that are (a
subset of what used to be called "da Near Nort'").
There is/was the Gold Coast, the Near North, and Rush Street. All
separate and distinct. Only New Yawkers would think of them as
subsets of anything.
You serious? I thought that Rush Street and the Gold Coast were parts of
"the Near North", as it was traditionally defined. Otherwise wouldn't you
have to carve those things out of the Near North, awkwardly, the way
various little communities are carved out of Los Angeles the city?
|
No, you *live* Near North. You *party* on Rush Street (even if you
drink at a bar that is off-Rush, and *live* or *shop* on the Gold
Coast. The difference between living Near North and on the Gold Coast
is status.
| Quote: | Nowadays, I think, there's not much usage of "the Near North", and I
think it's at best as you say -- it's a residual area that doesn't belong
to other more specifically-named areas. But I thought that you had
explained that it was all "Near North" back in your yout'. Didn't you
tell us you lived in (on?) the Gold Coast as well as "Near North", and at
the same time, back when you were in B-school?
|
I never really lived on the Gold Coast. I had an apartment a couple
of blocks east of Michigan on Superior. I can't tell you the dividing
line, but it would have been baldly presumptuous for me to claim to
have lived on the Gold Coast to anyone that knew the Gold Coast. I
might use it here because it generally describes the area. To a
some-time visitor to Chicago, it's an OK description because it means
I didn't live in Hyde Park or Bridgeport.
I also lived Near North on Scott Street near Astor. Gold Coast
residents walked past my apartment on their way to the cleaners or
something like that. My section of Scott Street wasn't Gold Coast in
their mind.
I also lived in Old Town. That one goes both ways: Old Town or Near
North. When I lived there, it was Old Town because it had a special
sort of meaning. Later, when Old Town started to get run down, the
same apartment might be just Near North.
I have a fuzzy idea of the same type of terminology that Manhattanites
might use. I may be wrong about this, but I don't think having an
apartment on the East Side is the same thing as having an apartment on
the Upper East Side. Both are east of the park, but that word "Upper"
means something to New Yawkers. Right?
I would also guess that the boundaries change there, too. An Upper
East Side address might become just an East Side address if the
general nature of the neighborhood changes.
I also lived in two places in Rogers Park. One was on Kenmore, and
that was Rogers Park. One was on Jarvis Street, but faced the lake
with no building between mine and the lake. That was North Lake Shore
even though it was Rogers Park.
When I was living in Chicago, there were a lot of changes going on.
Neighborhoods that had become run down were bought up by developers.
Some group would buy all the houses/apartments for several blocks on
some street and start renovating them. You'd find a place that was
high rent and quite nice, and next door on one side would be a
near-slum building and next door on the other side the developer would
be knocking out walls and renovating. To change the image of that
area, it would all-of-a-sudden have a "name". It would be "Delancy
Park" (a made-up name for example's sake). As the developer moved
down the street creating high-rent places from former slum-like
places, the boundary of "Delancy Park" would expand.
I know a guy that used to live in Georgetown (DeeCee) that said the
same thing went on there. Crack house to the left, crack house to the
right, and a few thou a month for the one in the middle. Next week
the crack house to the left would be under the renovation process.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando FL |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 3:41 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre |
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Laura F. Spira wrote:
[...]
| Quote: | I remember being told as a child that all the measurements of
distance
to London were taken from Marble Arch - I have no idea if this is
true |
[...]
| Quote: | I have no idea where the official centre might be - I shall consult
Daughter who works for Westminster City Council.
Trafalgar Square looks so good these days that it *ought* to be the
centre.
|
Isn't Chah-ring/Cherring Cross the traditional measuring-point?
--
Mike. |
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Harvey Van Sickle
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 3:41 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre |
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On 13 May 2005, the Omrud wrote
| Quote: | Laura F. Spira spake thusly:
I remember being told as a child that all the measurements of
distance to London were taken from Marble Arch - I have no idea
if this is true but I grew up believing that Marble Arch was bang
in the middle of London, although I was bit puzzled that we
called visiting Oxford Street "going up West". On reflection,
this may be the source of some of my difficulties with direction
(hi, Phil!) since I now realise that we were in fact travelling
south eastwards on that journey.
I thought the measurements were taken from Charing Cross.
|
I think that's right -- from the point where the statue looks down
Whitehall.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canada for 30 years; S England since 1982.
(for e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van) |
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Areff
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 4:06 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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Tony Cooper wrote:
| Quote: | I've been to Westchester County. There are some nice areas there,
and there are some very ordinary places there. Tell me, though, that
you haven't come across people that manage to tell you they live in
Westchester County that do so with the clear intent of letting you
know they've "made it".
|
I suppose, in some contexts, that might make sense. But Westchester County
has lots of crummy places, like Yonkers, Port Chester, New Rochelle (Sorry
Truly! [Say, where is...?]), White Plains, etc. So it might reflect lack
of familiarity with Westchester on the speaker's part.
| Quote: | I hear ya. My second (or third, depending on how you count) apartment in
Chicago was, I've said, in/on the Gold Coast, but I don't think it really
was -- too far west I think. It surprises me that you would consider
something to be too far east to be in/on the Gold Coast (unless you were
underwater), but my understanding of Chicago geography never really got
past the hazy stage.
and Clark and Rush streets on the west.
Nonsense. At least at that time. Rush, OK, but Clark was a blighted
area for at least two blocks east. of Clark.
|
I don't think it's quite that way now. But when I lived on Dearborn, I did
get the sense that I was right on the edge, that a couple of blocks or so
to the west things started getting quite crummy. And I was just a couple
of blocks from Division and Clark, which was sort of crummy in a
commercial sense. But that's where a very nice Jewel-Osco supermarket was
(well, nice by overpriced Ch*c*g* standards, BID). |
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Paul Wolff
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 4:08 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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In message <crs981132iba870962g69110fv700bjlh6@4ax.com>, Ross Howard
<gguiri@yahoo.com> writes
| Quote: | On Fri, 13 May 2005 15:14:06 +0000 (UTC), Areff <me@privacy.net
wrought:
Isn't Trafalgar Square the center
point of present-day London? Discuss.
The centre point for me is probably -- no joke intended -- Centre
Point (where Oxford Street/Road and Charing Cross/Tottenham Court Road
Road cross) and environs (the Denmark Street guitar shops). Trafalgar
Square is too near the river for me (I'm assuming that everyone agrees
that Sahfuvva River doesn't exist), with too much stuff of importance
and/or interest north of it for it to be dead centre. For people who
live in central London, the famous touristy bits (the Mall, the
Palace, No. 10, St James's Park, the Tower, etc.,) are largely to be
ignored, with the result that Nelson's Column is probably less
relevant to your life than the Lord Nelson pub.
Rider: The above is greatly skewed by personal experience. In all my
years in London I worked only in the West End and lived in West
central (Earls Court, South Ken, Notting Hill) and North centralish
(Belsize Park and Hampstead).
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I commend you on your choice of habitat. Personal experience gives the
subjective centre, of course. One day, when I'm gone, they'll put up a
blue plaque at 31, Belsize Park to commemorate the house where I first
met my wife, and St Peter's Church opposite where I married her. I seem
to remember that 27 and 28 buses were convenient transports of delight
from Notting Hill to Swiss Cottage.
[...]
--
Paul
In bocca al Lupo! |
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Paul Wolff
Guest
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| Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 4:59 am
Post subject: Re: The town centre (was: Re: Metric Iron-Age shoe) |
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In message <d62g7u$3qd$1@news.wss.yale.edu>, Areff <me@privacy.net>
writes
| Quote: | Charles Riggs wrote:
Where is a city's centre and must a city have one?
Doesn't London use Charing Cross
as the basis for its numbering system? Isn't Trafalgar Square the center
point of present-day London? Discuss.
Laura says Marble Arch for distance measures, but maybe that's an Oxford |
view: Marble Arch is on the A40 road to Oxford. I think that Charing
Cross is the basis for most mileage chart distances to and from London.
Since London is grown around two cities, London and Westminster, I'd try
as ever to be logical and look at the connecting axis of Fleet Street
and The Strand running from the City through Temple Bar to Trafalgar
Square, which is just up Whitehall from Parliament Square, home of the
Palace of Westminster and Westminster Abbey, and a carriage drive up The
Mall from Buck House; I'd draw a midpoint at The Aldwych, and say that
there, where you find the Royal Courts of Justice and the Beeb (once if
not still in its World Service persona at Bush House), is a good English
compromise for the centre of London.
But I asked my wife where the centre of Greater London lies, and it
turns out that the true answer to be believed at all times in this
household is Charing Cross, after all.
--
Paul
In bocca al Lupo! |
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