The London Daily Newsletter Monday 31 July

Rackham Street, eastern end (1950)
The bombing of the Second World War meant that some whole streets were wiped off the future map. Rackham Street, in London W10, was one of them.

This photo shows the corner of Ladbroke Grove looking west down Rackham Street just after the end of the Second World War. Just beyond the Rootes advert was the local doctor’s surgery. (Rootes, an auto manufacturor, was taken over by Chrysler long after the war.) Beyond the surgery, the houses – three floors and a basement flat, would generally house four or more families each. During the night of 27/8 September 1940, after Nazi incendiary bombs, the central part of Rackham Street become a huge crater (though only one person was killed). As the Luftwaffe aimed for the railway line and gas works, the nearby Princess Louise Hospital was also bombed three times and around a hundred incendiaries hit the St Charles convent and grounds. In the early 1950s, the rest of Rackham Street was demolished to make way for the Balfour of Burleigh estate. Rackham Street left no trace – not even a name.

TUM Book Club: Tube Mapper Project
Photographer Luke Agbaimoni created the Tube Mapper project allowing him to be creative, fitting photography around his lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute.

The Underground is the backbone of the city of London, a part of our identity. It’s a network of shared experiences and visual memories, and most Londoners and visitors to the city will at some point have an interaction with the London Underground tube and train network. Photographer Luke Agbaimoni gave up city-scape night photography after the birth of his first child, but creating the Tube Mapper project allowed him to continue being creative, fitting photography around his new lifestyle and adding stations on his daily commute. His memorable photographs consider such themes as symmetry, reflections, tunnels and escalators, as well as simply pointing out and appreciating the way the light falls on a platform in an evening sunset. This book reveals the London every commuter knows in a unique, vibrant and arresting style.

Wapping, 1860-1864

James McNeill Whistler

Video: Co-ordinate near to Gardner Close, Wanstead
Jago Hazzard went to the far reaches of the Central Line