I spent most of 2009 in the lab engaged in visual pattern recognition – the scientific equivalent of one of these things is not like the other (or, for the Brits amongst you, the odd one out round). In the initial triage stage of my RNAi morphology screen, which went on for months, I sat in front of my computer and flashed quartets of images before me in rapid suggestion, asking myself simply, which of these is normal, and which deviate?
Recently my father emailed me an etching of my London neighborhood, Rotherhithe, as envisioned by James Whistler (1834–1903). In the picture, two men sit relaxed on a quayside with the boats and river behind them, and I was captivated by how familiar the scene looked. Like me, Whistler was an American ex-pat in London, making the image doubly significant. I was immediately inspired to try to track down the precise site featured by the artist using solely what I could see in the picture – no cheating on the internet unless I was stumped.
Rotherhithe (Originally published as Wapping), 1860.
Unknown even to some Londoners, who as a rule tend to shun the La Rive Gauche, Rotherhithe is a leafy, beautiful place steeped in history. Situated in the Docklands on the south bank of the river opposite the Isle of Dogs and Wapping, in the old days it was a village on the outskirts of London, a port in its own right since the 12th century. Many of the old warehouses have been converted to flats, and there’s a beautiful old pub called The Mayflower where, apparently, our Founding American Fathers paused for a quick pint. The area is also memorialized in Elvis Costello’s haunting waltz tune, “New Amsterdam”. In fact, when I moved back to London from Amsterdam in 2003, I opened up the A-to-Z and tried to find a place that would remind me of my Dutch flat in the Hemonykwartier of the Pijp. Homing in on canals and docks, I made this place my new home.
I thought it would be easy to track down the scene; after all, the artist had incorporated what looked to be highly diagnostic curvature in the river beyond. Of course many of the waterfront buildings would have changed, but there was no hiding that sexy bend. Nevertheless, I failed miserably on my first outing: there simply was no place anywhere between Deptford and London Bridge where the Thames had that exact curve. I emailed my Dad in despair, opining that Whistler must have conjured the scene from his head with no precise view in mind.
It was then that my father wrote back sheepishly and told me the image he’d ripped from the internet had been displayed in the wrong orientation – flipped 180 degrees around the y axis.
Back on track! So that sketchy dome in the far right corner suddenly resolved itself as St Paul’s Cathedral, and all clicked into place. Along with my neighbor Richard and one of his daughters as reinforcements, I set off by bike on a frigid sunny afternoon armed only with a printout of the etching, correctly oriented this time, slowly working upriver from Nelson Dock Pier. Soon it was clear that, as expected, Whistler had created his work right in the heart of Rotherhithe. It looked very much to us as if the artist had been standing on the back terrace of the Mayflower itself; we were initially flummoxed by Tower Bridge, conspicuously absent from the Whistler composition, until Richard thought to whip out his iPhone and confirm that it hadn’t been built until 1886.
It didn’t seem precisely right – if the scene were part of my screen, I’d have scored it as a mild phenotype. But it was getting late: spatters of cold rain were coming down and we all felt we deserved a session at the pub to warm up. It turns out we were a thousand feet shy of the real target: the riverside balcony of the Angel Inn on Bermondsey Wall. Sounds like a good excuse to take a walk, on this long, lazy holiday week, have a nice pint and try to capture the definitive photograph once and for all.
Did someone say ‘pint’? Me and my EOS are ready when you are.
This reminded me that the public records office here has photos of every house in New York taken 1939-1941. So if you want a B&W vintage photo of your NYC apt or street originally taken for tax snooping purposes, you can purchase a copy from the NYC government.
And Sabbi’s comment reminded me that I ought to add the Toronto Archives (just up the street from me) to the long list of things I want to do in my last three weeks in Toronto.
I’d like to delve more into the history of this area, too. Many buildings have been completely converted; a lot of this peninsula went up in flames during the Blitz because it was full of timber yards and the Luftwaffe put a lot of Welly into it. Most of the serious rebuilding seems to have gone on in the Eighties, which means that we don’t have things like the New York brownstone apartments. But some of the warehouse conversions are beautiful, inside and out (not that I could afford to live in any of them). And they’ve done an amazing job with the parks, making canals and ponds from some of the original docks when they were creating the landfill areas. But I like the docks the best, because they’re full of houseboats and remind me of Amsterdam:
Lovely bit of detective work. I’ve been planning a Londonist series along these lines for a while – trying to visit the scenes of London paintings and drawings to capture them with photographs. This has inspired me to get cracking.
Oooh. Shout if you need help crowd-sourcing that, Matt.
What a great idea, Matt. I can ask my Dad if he has any other ideas for scenes from the art side of things.
Great – happy to do it as a team effort. I’ll probably start with this George Clausen pic of Haverstock Hill, as it’s just round the corner from me – and that pointy-roofed building is still there. Anyone want to pose as the victorian lady?
If you’re looking for extroverts, you know where to find me.
Just now, I was accidentally in a bookstore with my mom, and I told her to stop me from buying anything, but the force was too strong, and I left with a book full of photos of my Toronto neighbourhood and of people connected to it. It has a photo of my building, and a map of an underground river, and something about Margaret Atwood, and also a bunch of old photos. The whole neighbourhood isn’t any older than about 120 years, so most of the buildings are still there, but I found out that my apartment building was built on the site of a former mansion.
[Some more accurate reading later]. And not just any mansion… I just found out today that for the past 6 years I’ve been living on the same piece of ground as one of Canada’s most famous businessmen
Oh, wow. I wish I’d had this book earlier so I could have bragged about it for longer…
That guy by the pickaxe and the lamps is looking at her arse, I swear.
Bustles have that effect on some rogues.
Eva, that’s really cool. I know exactly who’s been living in my flat for the last millennium because I still get all their junk mail.
try to capture the definitive photograph once and for all
This sounds like the pursuit of all photographers, everywhere… well me anyway. It may take some time. Like forever. But that’s a good thing.
Eva, you might know that T. Eaton esq. also built a massive estate in King City, which is now the site of Seneca College’s King campus. Apparently he would host an annual garden party for all of his employees each summer. I imagine it must have taken them roughly all day to trundle up there via horse and cart though.
Come to think of it, it would probably take all day to get there by public transit today, too…