ledge69

Although there are vs threads on here I havn't seen a dedicated London thread. I want to show other less known parts of the city and it would be really cool if people from other cities around the world coudl as well so we can all see more then what the guidbook shows you. I'll start with a few skyline pics in the City area. Some closer shots of the City area of London. 20 Fenchurch Street with one of Wren's many churhces. Tower 42 amongst the narrow streets. Fenchurch Street station with it's horrid addition. One of the City's hidden back alleys. Bank of England and the Corn Exchange. An arial view of Canary Wharf and the Docklands area in Tower Hamlets. A view of north London. Some of London's lesser landmarks. Westminster Cathedral BBC Television Centre, Wood Lane, West London That traffic light sculpture in Westferry. A closer look at the BT Tower, Fitzrovia. Until 1993 this buildings location was secret imformation. Haywood Gallery. The O2, formaly the Millenium Dome, known locally as the White Elephant. Southwark Cathedral, notice how close the railway lines are to the building. In the early days railway companies had almsot free rain on what they did but after this rules were put in place, sadly this did little to stop the 60's and 70's office blocks that now block it. Battersea Power Station, still awaiting renovation. Alexandra Palace, Muswell Hill, north London, once home to the BBC. Other buildings around London and outskirt areas. 1 Kemble Street Centre Point, St Giles Circus near Oxford Street Wimbledon area with Tramlink tram. One of London's many estates. The Brunswick Centre, designed to be private housing in Bloomsbury area it was sold off mid construction and until a few years ago was a dive, now the orignial vision has been finished. Bermondsey street in the dock area. The British Library, this has to be the pinnacle of our obsession with bricks? Guy's Hospital, Southwark is the tallest hospital in the world. A small reminder of the cities past architecture and a suprise find in Walthamstow of all places. Trellick Tower, west London, designed by Erno Goldfinger. Tower Hotel, right next to the Tower of London. St. Katherines Dock. University of London Some pictures of the University of East London, Silvertown. Greenwich Millenium Village. Peckham Library, south London. St. Georges Wharf, Vauxhall, Lambeth. Cranes around the Royal Victoria Dock where I live in east London. Macadam House. Hilton Hotel, west London. Islington College. Bermonsey College. Barrier Point, Silvertown, east London. The Tower, Colliers Wood, now empty. Transport is key to London but theres more then the victorian tube staions. Docklands Light Railway. A train at London City Airport staion, Silvertown, east London. Canary Wharf station entrance, escalators, booking hall and a train leaving the DLR station. Canada Water station on Jubilee and East London lines. Hounslow East staion entrance. Hainult station on the Central Line in Essex. Interior of Southwark station on Jubilee line, south London. North Greenwich station on the Jubilee line. Stratford station, east London, home to 2012 Olympics. Interior of Westminster station. Interior of Southgate station on Piccadilly line and Gants Hill on the central line, both designed by Charles Holden and influenced by the Moscow metro. London Marylebone station. Canon Street after its terrible makeover. Bendy buses the unwanted invaision, dangerous, unreliable, ugly, a bad use of road space and a fare dogers paradise. Paddington Basin, a new low rise office group in west London. So there you are hopfully some fifferent perspectives of London there, will add more later.

The first one is Sydney.

Gatwick - Crap design (what are those spiral stairs about). As said above there is nowhere near enough seating and even then their are no facillities whilst you wait to board. The plus point is the Gatwick Express.

Love 80 South Street although I can see it is more Asian/European in style. That Chigago Spire is just really unattractive.

London Part 2 Westminster The second city of the London conibation. Dominated by most of the Government departments. Also home to fashion headquarters, Chambers, real estate and embassies totalling over 5,780,000m2. Some of worlds most expensive office space can be found here. Camden & Islington A Borough lying just north of the City of London. A business centre only really gaining note in the last 50 years and in the last 20 drawing hundreds of fashion and creactive arts firms. The Old Street area has become home to the new media hub totally over 2,294,000m2. In the future the King's Cross railway lands could see a big rise to this number. Islington Old Street, Islington End Southwark & Lambeth Lying just across the river Thames from the City of Lodnon. Clusterd mostly around London Bridge station is 1,780,000m2 of office space, mainly occupied by consultancy, recruitment and local Government. Southwark Towers, Southwark King's Reach Tower in Lambeth. London is also home to smallish industrial estates. One of the biggest being Park Royal in West London and a second, Stratford Marshes in East London although this has greatly been turned to other uses and with the 2012 Olympic development will see most of it turned over to office space. It's hard to find a picture to capture these areas and there mostly a mixed lot with more then one centre to them. If you've ever been to London you will know it follows few rules on city planning :-)

I'm 19 and live in London where I work as a P.A for a solicitors.

Europe; which country thou? It's one of the reason I love it, so many and yet each so diverse. I also love the liberal attitude a word that means a smack in the face to a lot of countries. I think I would go for Germany thou. I live in Britain but it has too many negatives for me personaly so I would happily live in Berlin.

Well my old neighbourhood had no transport cos the UK governemnt don't concern themselves with the country. But in Royal Docks we have 4 DLR stations on two lines (Royal Victoria, Custom House, West Silvertown & Pontoon Dock). We have the London City Airport, the London Underground at Canning Town along with another DLR station. Unfortunatly we lost our River Boat service at Silvertown Pier and last year our rail link which cut out 3 stations (Canning Town, Custom House & Silvertown). We also has two bus routes. In the future we will get a new DLR line to Stratford/Woolwich and one day possible a Crossrail station. The area was once a thriving industrial area and had trams and other railways running through but is now fast becoming a large commuter region. It's a penninsula boarderd by the Thames. The only way off one end is by a free ferry but a tunnel is being built under the river to Woolwich. The Royal Docks, looking towards Canary Wharf and the City. London City Airport in the middle of King George IV Dock Custom House DLR station with now closed British Rail platforms to the right. DLR at Royal Victoria station. Silvertown for London City Airport station, looking redundant like most suburban stations do. (Probably the most obsure station for an airport as you'd have to walk a mile to get to it) Bus station at Cannin Town Ferry heading to Woolwich from North Woolwich A train at Canning Town, service now withdrawn these platforms will provide a new DLR service to Woolwich Arsenal station and Stratford International for the Olympics.

Contrast makes London London thou. It has to be one of the pretiest ugliest cities because of its mix of styles. Its unfair to say that we don't retain our past, most of the historic city was lost no suprise to the Great Fire and the war destroyed a few of the remminants too. It's also this history that has given us the chaotic network of streets (not all of London is like this). Paris' transport network is far better then London. You get what you pay for but in London thats not a lot. However in the last 10 years there has been a real revival in London which shows no signs of stopping. There both evenly matched but I'm biased so no suprise I say London. Edit: Constantina - May look cosy but it dosent bare thinking about whats lurking in them.

Manchester, all that regeneration money but it's still not improving the quality of life for the people who need it most. Simply more police to make communities feel they can speak out and have somone on their side.

London; extend tube network mainly into South London. Rebuild Euston station and restore Cannon Street and Fenchurch Street. Pedestianise Oxford Street. Build more high density housing in East London for first time buyers. Get rid of bendy buses. Demolish Thamesmead and start again. Redraw boundaries to include what isn't but should be now classed as London.

Well the Palace of the Parliament is the 2nd largest building in the world and I know its really long as there is a painting that can only be unrolled there stretching from one side to the other. The picture is a bit deceptive but trust me its massive. One of the rumours was that a whole forest was felled just to make the doors in this place.

Harvest Tower, NYC by Norman Foster

Paignton, Devon Modelled on the Palace of Versailles, Oldway Mansion was built by Isaac Merritt Singer, founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company. The grand ballroom at Oldway was the venue for social dances attended by Agatha Christie. The building was gifted to the town but because of works needed on it I won't be suprised if it becomes a casino if not then the equaly beautiful Pavillion will be flogged off.

New York has the big plus of being 24 hour, so its deffinatly in the top 3.

Is it just me or is this project going to become one of the biggest white elephants to date in the UK. If anyone has seen the film 'Cube' then this is Crossrail. A project that has lost its purpose but is being pushed over every hurdle because its been on the agenda so long and already cost millions in preperations. This was one of the original route maps before the project was rejected in 1994. The Alylesbury and Cheshem lines now have a good train operator and the Metropolitan already joins into the Underground. However the Reading route which has now been cut back to Maidenhead seems odd as trains from Paddington to Reading are very crowded and the operator even marks fast trains to Reading from local services. I couldn't find a real reason although with inflation the rising cost has to be forever cut back from somthing. So after more then a decade were left with this. The Isle of Dogs is now well established as a new micro city. This and Heathrow Airport have now made an apperance as new branches. With all the development in the Docklands the Docklands Light Railway can't cope on its own and the Jubilee Line is quite a slow way to get into the City. Currently the Heathrow Express runs to Paddington where you can either get a train into the west or change for the Underground. Most take the Piccadilly as its a lot cheaper even thou it is a nightmare trying to get all your cases and the twins on. This strikes me as the only part of the system that will actually benefit people and course no disruption to exsisting services. Although why the route then takes you from Isle of Dogs out to Abbey Wood, a station on the Dartford Loop Line, taking you right under Woolwich Arsnel, a station on the same line. The reason is because there isn't the money to build it, even thou the area is going through regeneration and will have a link to the Docklands Light Railway. Would it not be sensible to terminate the line here and not take it to a station miles away? Apprently not and the proposal to take the line all the way to Ebbesfleet International was thrown out too. A route that would have allowed many people in Kent to get into the city and avoid using the Underground. That just leaves the line to Shenfield. Like the line to Maidenhead people are left asking, why to Shenfield? Why not to Chelmsford a big city that like most of the rail network out this way dosen't get all that great a service. The last point is the disruption to exsisting servies a point that is played down. No extra capacity will be made for the Heathrow branch. First Great Western already runs as many services to the South West as it can and these will take 2nd priorty over Crossrail trains as will freight trains. Tee same is true on the Shenfield branch. I just wonderd what your views were and what improvements could be made even thou it seems to late and this project is going ahead albeit at a slow pace.

I agree bearmans the money would be better spent improving what we have. The thing is that to pay for Crossrail it will no doubt run on a seperate fare structure, tempting less people to use it. The London Overground/Orbirail will deliever more benefits and yet that is going to end up a half botched job cos there isn't the funding for it.

I love Paddington as it links me back to my roots in Devon. I also love Bath Spa, Crystal Palace and the former Broad Street sadly demolished. My fav I think would be Shrewsbury and Exeter St. Thomas it has an understated beauty.

I would love to say "Transport for London" but I would be lying as it is tatty, dated, inefficient and very expensive. Bendy buses, badly designed new trains and Crossrail mean that London is unlikely to have a decent transport system anytime in my lifetime. So my vote goes to Madrid, a city only slightly smaller then London and yet look at the difference. Whilst politicians moan about cost here menaing nothing can be built il its 7 years out of date and has cost 5 times more then it should. Madrid has built a fantastic and extensive system that anticipates future growth and best of all its value for money.

Plymouth and Exeter are always clammering for retail mecca. Plymouth thinks it should be county seat because its the bigger city. It thought it could attract shoppers with the new Drake Circus but Exeters redevelopment has already attrated John Lewis, its better connected with the rail network and has more charm although thats not Plymouths fault.

I don't think much of these surveys and would say London is a lot worse then it's ranked. It's still great to live here thou and thats what counts.