London — a wrapped and scaffolded city where the unveiling never stops

Press, 2 June 1984, Page 19

London — a wrapped and scaffolded city where the unveiling never stops

By

STAN DARLING,

who was recently a guest of Air New

Zealand in London and Los Angeles.

Scaffolding cages the Covent Garden church portico where Professor Higgins first saw Eliza Doolittle selling flowers. Street theatre has replaced the flower sellers in the Piazza, while a modern Miss Doolittle—there for the tourists—has moved her act across the way to the covered market, where old cast iron stalls from the former flower market are being used by craftsmen, trinket dealers, and others with something to sell. London is still spending millions of dollars trying to preserve its . style and add something new. The - balancing act seems to be working. Each year brings a new set of buildings that have been wrapped and scaffolded, like packages waiting for the day when someone will pull a ribbon and let the flimsy facades drop to reveal the surprises inside. Big Ben is having its faces improved beneath a covering that makes it look like a medieval combat tower from across the river. In Piccadilly Circus, an old department store is being transformed into retail units. Piccadilly’s aluminium statue of Eros will be removed from its island soon so it can be restored. The island will also be removed. When Eros returns from the repair shop, it will stand off to one side, near the Criterion Theatre, and make it easier for traffic to avoid the Circus clog that has developed over the years. One cab driver says that Nelson and his column in Trafalgar Square will have to be shifted to one side some day, a job requiring two cranes, to make way for the new Fleet Underground line. Another driver is always stopping to ask questions about the latest changes he spots. In a new bank with large windows facing the sun, a tall tree has been planted. He wonders how they keep it from bending always toward the light and growing crooked. Easily done, say the bank ' officers. The tree is on a turntable. It gets rotated regularly. The driver adds that tidbit to information he compiles for lectures, and for the people he takes on prestige tours in his taxi. Near Piccadilly Circus, the Trocadero Centre will open soon, another example of preserving an old exterior, fitting something new inside and adding the glitter that will attract shoppers and tourists. Inside, a multi-storey atrium will rise through “theme” levels—an English Square, an Italian Piazza, a French Quarter. The first Guinness World of Records exhibition is in the building. It is all very interesting, says one driver, but is it London? Will the trendy world of discos, delis, and boutiques go too far and give the city a Disneyland flavour? British tourist interests are working hard to stress that it’s still the same old London, with some new twists. Because of present squabbles between local Government and the Conservative government over who should rule London, the rate of changes that have transformed much of the city in the last 20

years without damaging its style could be threatened. The Greater London Council, which has performed many of the metropolitan area’s functions since the mid-19605, is facing extinction. Under abolition legislation to be introduced next year, the G.L.C.’s jobs—such as public transport and policing—would be taken over by the many boroughs and towns that make up London, and by special purpose committees or boards. Some functions could go to private enterprise. A new system would do less by spending less than the Left-wing-dominated G.L.C., says the antilegislation argument. London is being papered with self-supporting G.L.C. propaganda, reports, and banners, as the sympathy and help of the people it taxes is sought. Get rid of us, the G.L.C. says, and you could have more expensive and less frequent public transport (8000 jobs cut), a higher risk of fires (1400 jobs cut), higher rents, dirtier parks, more discrimination, and thousands more jobs lost because work creation schemes would be abolished under “rates capping” restrictions imposed on local bodies. The G.L.C. argues that years of intensive redevelopment after the Second World War have not changed the city’s character because the council’s Historic Buildings Division has been constantly vigilant. Some of the more visible jobs done by the G.L.C., in co-operation with the Government and other local bodies, have been new uses for the Covent Gardens district and the St Katherine docks project. The -■ stand out as models of how a city can change its deteriorating areas without relying on stark replacements. Approaching London from the south, on the Gatwick Airport shuttle train, it is easy to be lulled into the sense that little has changed in this part of the world in the last 20 years. At least not much has happened in railway-side back gardens and streets. Traces of closed branch lines can be seen sliding past, and there seems to be more rubble than rebuilding in some places. It’s a Sunday, though, and you don’t expect much action. The daffodils and crocuses were appearing, some clinging in the most unlikely places. When we came this way in the 19605, it was at the end of an overnight train and ferry trip from an American Army base in Germany. It doesn’t seem much different at the end of a one-stop, two-night flight from Auckland. You still get entangled in the rail lines as you get nearer the river; you still have the Battersea Power Station looming up just before crossing the Thames and sliding into Victoria Station. There have been high-rise clusters of steel and glass buildings at East Croydon and Clapham Junction rail centres, coming in, but not many other signs of a changed England. Changes are more obvious during a three-day whip-round of the city and its surroundings. Some of them

are grand, like the Barbican Centre for Arts and Conferences, and some are simply ugly. Perhaps the best way to see both is to stumble on them during unplanned walkabouts. You can go back to the places you had fleeting glimpses of, and find others. Tube wandering—getting on an underground train and going to the end of the line, or popping above ground at any station to see what’s up on the surface—is a good way to see what is new, what is done up, and what is untouched. We went up to the Baker Street Station, now done up in shiny tiles and lights the way it was at the start, and got out into the spring sunshine. Regents Park is only a block away, and it has that sight from the 1960 s of the ultramodern G.P.O. tower, barnacled by its communications dishes, rising from beyond the greenery. After a spring stroll through the park, a must even if nothing new is about, we got back on to the tube and took it to the southern end of the line, at the Elephant and Castle Station. In the old photos, you see an interesting roundabout there, and a pub where you could maybe get a quick counter lunch, something that wouldn’t take too much away from the wandering time. The new has taken over down there, with a dense mass of offices and shopping blocks, and so much concrete that you can only proceed under the roundabout through tunnels. The pub, the new one, has been fitted into the ground floor of a high-rise building. We boarded a double-decker bus headed toward Waterloo Station, and found a narrow back street that seemed untouched, filled with an open-air market far from the the tourist track. In these places, and there must be plenty of them, you can be surrounded by hustle, haggling, and chatter without dodging traffic or tourists. The first floor platform of Waterloo Station is another revelation, with its skylighted concourse curving around below the newcleaned brick of high station walls. Again, a cafeteria lunch at the station is not on the tourist track, but it comes complete with a cheery view of station activity and sandwiches that show no signs of turning up at the edges. We took the short commuter walk, all elevated, through the Shell-Mex Building and over to Waterloo Bridge, with the city just ahead. The National Theatre’s neon signboard continually flashes its moving message across the rivercome on over for the plays, the best views of the city, the food, drink, and parking. If that smoke coming from the bridge footpath is what he thinks it is, our friend is going to treat himself to roast chestnuts before entering the city again. It isn’t. The smoke is from a tar bucket where the footpath is being patched. The roast chestnut stand, one of those things that never seems to change about London, will have to come later.