Saturday, August 6, 2011

Pink Saturday - A pink pram on Brick Lane

 Pink Saturday - Beverly at the blog "How Sweet the Sound" hosts Pink Saturday. Let the color pink inspire you! 

There's a lot of street art in East London
 Brick Lane is located in London's East End. It's always been a neighborhood of immigrants - starting with French Huguenot refugees in the 17th century, come to work at weaver's shops, then Irish and Ashkenazi Jews in the 19th century. In the 20th century, Bangladeshi immigrants came to Brick Lane, and today the street is lined with curry shops.


There's been a market on Brick Lane since the 17th century - and nowadays, it happens on Sundays. You can find anything at the Brick Lane Market,  from exotic produce to used furniture to cheap sunglasses.




When we visited on a Sunday in June, we walked past the stalls and vendors and I noticed a little girl pushing a pink doll's pram. As we browsed among the second hand furniture or vintage clothing, we kept seeing her with her mother, doing the same. Her doll was hidden away behind a screen, but she pushed her pram with a sense of purpose.


She and her mother were careful shoppers, looking for bargains at vegetables or displays of sunglasses. They paused to check out some second hand goods, then moved on. They lined up at the shop where we bought hot fresh bagels - although in London they called them Beigels.


Brick Lane is teeming with people, selling or buying everything from old clothes and scavenged hardware to handcrafted items.


This vendor is selling beautifully crafted leather goods, like this pretty pink purse.


Elsewhere, people spread old shoes out on the pavement, hoping for buyers. How about those hot pink heels?


The market is roughly divided into sections, with trendier parts where you can find fashions made by new young designers, and seedier parts where sellers of cleaning supplies and counterfeit DVDs hawk their wares out of car boots in parking lots.


There is a stretch under the train trestle where food stalls offer a wide array of ethnic and artisanal foods.


If you don't fancy French pastry, you can always have dim sum.


Brick Lane is also home to some edgy boutiques and artsy clubs.

We lost sight of the little girl and her mother after a while. But we were happy to share our Brick Lane experience with them, as we explored this fascinating section of London.

1 comment:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Nice pics! I need to go somewhere else again to stock up.

P.S. Re: the honeybee picture at Thers, there is a hive in Frank Fetch Park in German Village (last pic is a daytime view).
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