On Brick Lane

I have just read a wonderful book entitled "On Brick Lane," by Rachel Lichtenstein (published by Penguin books). However, this book might not appeal to all tastes as it did to me, since I have a particular reason for being fascinated by this book, because I grew up on Brick Lane.
Brick Lane is a long meandering street that connects the boroughs of Bethnal Green, Shoreditch and Whitechapel in the East End of London. It was named because there was a brick producing plant that supplied the growing area of Whitechapel through the lane that became known as Brick Lane. Eventually this street came to epitomise the immigrant groups who crowded into England from the 1700's onwards and settled in the areas close to the docks. First came the Huguenots, French Protestants seeking safety, then came the Jews, those who could not afford to go all the way to America, then the Caribbean Blacks and then the Bangladeshis, and finally many East Europeans (Poles, Albanians). This was also the area of Jack-the-Ripper and the infamous Kray brothers and many rackets and criminal activities thrived there.
This book is a compilation and record of many peoples' reminiscences about living in the Brick Lane area. As such it is a collection of historical cum sociological articles about many of the individuals who have lived there, both the old survivors and the new arty inhabitants.
I lived at 233 Brick Lane, above my father's woodworking shop, from the late 1940s to 1956, when we moved out to Harrow-on-the-Hill. When I lived there it was not something one boasted about, it was a poverty-stricken, violent and sometimes colorful and culturally mixed area. Some parts of Whitechapel became 100% Jewish and then during the 1950s Jewish emigration started and now there are very few Jews left. Their place has been taken by the Bangladeshis, so that part of Brick Lane is now known as 'Banglatown.'
One drawback of this book is that from a Jewish point-of-view it is too late. Since the Jews left so long ago only traces of them remain, and it is a kind of sad task that Lichtenstein has taken upon herself, because her grandparents owned a jewelery store on Brick Lane in the 1930s.
The area was also terribly destroyed by German bombing during WWII, so that when I was growing up after the War there were huge bomb-sites all over the place. Not only did many Jews not return to the destroyed East End after the War, but over the years reconstruction and development has changed the area significantly.
The huge Truman brewery on Brick Lane closed down after supplying beer to generations of Londoners, and is now replaced by a large complex of art galleries, restaurants and boutiques. The Jewish stores that used to line the street are now replaced by hundreds of small curry restaurants and Bangladeshi groceries. The Brick Lane market that stretched on Sundays (to accomodate the Jews) from Bethnal Green Road down to Cheshire Street and beyond is now a ghost of its former self.
This book is also repetitive, since it covers the same ground several times seen from different points of view. We learn many times that the famous Machzike Hadas synagogue had been a Huguenot Church, and then a mission, and then the synagogue and finally is now the East London Mosque. This sounds nice from a multi-cultural, liberal point of view, but having lived there, I know that there was very little cross-cultural mixing at the time.
In fact, the East End in general and Brick Lane in particular was quite a violent place, with plenty of racial antagonism. As in many American cities that consisted of diverse immigrant groups, there were specific areas that belonged to each. The southern Whitechapel end of Brick Lane was Jewish territory, where the fascist blackshirts used to go to cause trouble. The northern end of Brick Lane was white English territory, and unfortunately we lived just on the border between the two, in the wood working area.
It was my fervent wish growing up to get out of there and go to live in some civilized place, and so romantic rhapsodising about the area does not appeal to me. Let the artists draw inspiration from the place, but as far as I am concerned it is a false romanticism.
When I walk down the street in Netanya, I can hear many languages, French, Russian, Hebrew, English, Yiddish, Arabic and some Spanish. But, there are no antagonisms between the groups here (even the Arabs come and go peacefully at the moment). The sun shines and it is a lot nicer than the East End of London.
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I have written about my experiences growing up on Brick Lane in my forthcoming novel "Amanuensis." For those interested I hope to have copies available soon.