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Memo to self
Visit London every year. Bar Shu, 28 Frith St., near Leicester Square, is the best Sichuan food I have had. The "Exploded Pork Kidneys" are especially fine, as are the green beans. Also noteworthy is Hot Stuff, 19 Wilcox Rd., a small Pakistani takeaways place which is rapidly gaining global fame.
For the first time in my life, I no longer feel I live in or near the center of the world.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 9, 2007 at 03:49 PM in Travels | Permalink
Comments
I hate to say it, but I was just in London a few weeks ago, and had the opposite reaction. Note to self: been there, done that, no need to go back. But I wasn't really in the mood to travel, and I wasn't with people who knew anything special to go to, so we did the normal touristy stuff.
Posted by: J. at May 9, 2007 3:52:14 PM
hope you enjoy London Tyler - I heartily recommend you try Tayyabs in whitechapel for the best pakistani lamb & mutton dishes, plus amazingly fresh naan bread. Check some online reviews/recommendation sites to see what I mean.
Posted by: nick at May 9, 2007 4:23:56 PM
I was flying from New York to London monthly for four years of my career. London is a great town, but I would say New York is the center of the world. Best food, most capital, most art & media.
Worst taxes though. The sun will eventually set, I'm sure.
Posted by: caveat bettor at May 9, 2007 4:33:51 PM
Geographically and culturally London will have more of an opporutnity to turn into "the center of the world" than new york, DC, and especially Tokyo. England's past empire has given London strong connections to the rest of the world. and its a free capital haven just outside of continental Europe (no wonder the English don't want to become too Euorean).
Posted by: thehova at May 9, 2007 4:34:58 PM
Dear Tyler,
Any book signing or lecture in London?
Posted by: L Monasterio at May 9, 2007 6:47:15 PM
surely Claridges is worth a visit?
Posted by: Chris at May 9, 2007 7:32:27 PM
The best Indian I ever had was at Cafe Spice Namaste in London, and that New York Times article suggests that that may not even be the best Indian in London. I've sadly come to the realization that there are more good restaurants than I'll have a chance to try.
Posted by: Ted at May 9, 2007 8:09:48 PM
Exploded pork kidneys ...?
Posted by: Peter at May 9, 2007 11:22:11 PM
London is like a summary of the World. If you cannot live in every city of the world, you can at least live in the "Abstract".
The beauty of London is that as soon as you arrive (I came to London 5 years ago) you feel A Londoner. You feel the city has been built there for you to walk along its streets. I have lived in American cities like Chicago and (in spite of being beautiful and full of culture) you feel always like an outsider. But maybe it is just me.
Note: I am neither European nor American.
Posted by: wanderwort at May 10, 2007 3:46:53 AM
London also has the advantage that it's just a train journey from places like Paris or Edinburgh; a quick flight from Amsterdam and not much longer from Venice and Florence and Prague.
Posted by: dearieme at May 10, 2007 12:50:43 PM
wanderwort : yeah, I know what you mean! I spent about a month working in London in the 90s and felt the same way about it. It was a shock to come home to LA and feel like an ant in the wrong anthill.
Posted by: jon o at May 10, 2007 7:14:30 PM
Lebanese schwarma to die for - Taza Take Out, on Queensway in Bayswater.
Luckily you don't need to eat the "Mexican" "food".
Posted by: Andrea at May 11, 2007 12:57:26 AM
London is the problem of coordination failure and neglect by central government.
The transport system is a shambles. It needs 10s of billions spent on it. No one can agree who should pick up the tab. We are at least one, if not 2 Tube Lines from what we need.
New York was able to raise bond financing against securitisation of ticket revenues. London was prevented from doing this, by a mad cap scheme to 'privatise' the Tube management, with 5,000 page service contracts. Now one of the private consortia running the Tube is going bust and the public sector will have to pick up the pieces (see Privatisation of British Rail, abortive, for the first Act of this Tragedy).
Give our megalomaniac friend-of-Chavez Mayor Ken Livingston something, he at least drove through the £10 congestion charge, which everyone said was politically impossible. The right wing press ran a campaign against the programme for years in advance, yet once implemented, most people agreed it was a perfectly good idea.
There is no coordination on housing policy, either. London has the least affordable housing in the UK, and by some measures in the developed world. Greenbelt restrictions and height restrictions prevent the creation of new supply, and prices soar, and everyone simply gnashes their teeth.
If London fails as the world's financial capital, it will be because the cost of living there, and the difficulty and hassle of the transport system, eventually forces companies to relocate elsewhere.
Posted by: Valuethinker at May 11, 2007 11:29:29 AM
London has the same cultural problem as Manhattan.
Market forces are squeezing out the small shops and merchants, and there are no policies to prevent that. It is so bad, Time Out has a contest to find the High Street with the most Starbucks (Islington is up there with 5, in 3/4 of a mile). Yet Starbucks has a plan to at least double the number of outlets in London. Chains of bars and restaurants are destroying the individual character of many neighbourhoods.
The same thing is happening in Manhattan. If you want to catch any of the flavour of Manhattan of 15 years ago, you have to go to Brooklyn or Queens. The equivalent outer neighbourhoods in London themselves have been homogenized by the major retailers and restaurant chains. Every high street has the same 2 or 3 chains: Nandos, Pizza Express etc.
The charming bits of London (Covent Garden, etc.) which were saved from the megalomaniacal plans of urban planners (Covent Garden was going to be a motorway) are now so touristy that they've lost much of their local flavour.
The grotty bits are being redeveloped into sterile office quarters: see Kings Cross, or Docklands before it.
If current trends continue, London is going to be, in 15 years time, a city of the very very rich, and the very poor. The middle classes will be entirely squeezed out.
Posted by: Valuethinker at May 11, 2007 11:35:41 AM
Wanderwort
The thing about London is that it is not a City. It is a collection of villages, defined largely by each Tube stop.
And each village has its tribe. The City is not the West End-- the former city finance, the latter hedge funds and art dealers and media types. Neither is Victoria-- civil servants. Notting Hill (posh Trustafarians and Afro-Carribeans) is not Islington (Chardonnay socialists) nor is it Hampstead (investment bankers and Brits with received pronunciation). Belsize Park (next tube stop to Hampstead) is a different place than Hampstead, with different people.
You meet people in North London who seldom if ever travel 'south of the river'. You meet people in West London who have never been to Crouch End or Muswell Hill, and couldn't find them on a map.
Overarching it all is this Victorian genius and exuberance, that created all those wonderful buildings and institutions, that built the Tube lines and the railways. Very little built since then, relatively, is of any merit or note. But the Victorians bequeathed us the row house, the Tube, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the British Museum, the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square, Covent Garden etc.
London is like the Dim Sum lunch of the world. Each tray brings new treasures.
Posted by: Valuethinker at May 11, 2007 11:57:54 AM
yes, I agree.
the Victorian architecture is amazing. Its the post world War II stuff which nauseates me. it reminds of America's college dormitories.
and even the newer buildings are a little too bold for my taste. they show no aesthetic connection to england or London.
Posted by: thehova at May 11, 2007 2:39:33 PM
thehova
- there is some good 1920s and 30s stuff. London had a building boom in the 1930s, associated with the peak years of the London Transport system, under Frank Underhill.
As a result you can find suburban Tube Stations which are architectural gems, and a number of town halls, suburban High Streets etc. that are really interesting. Not to mention the cinemas of the period (many of which are now JD Wetherspoons pubs or bingo halls) if they haven't been knocked down.
The really horrific period culminates, to my mind, in the RA Seiffert monstrosity at Tottenham Court Road- -Centre Point. Every time I go by there, I see pedestrians struggling along where the pavement (sidewalk) should be, but instead find themselves in the middle of heavily trafficked roadway. And above them, 25 stories of concrete waffle iron. Yet they had the nerve to historically list it!
Most of the office and public buildings of 1950-1970 are ugly blobs of concrete. Think the horrific roundabout at Elephant and Castle, once 'the Piccaddilly of the South Bank'. Or the deeply uninspiring grimy concrete walkways of the National Film Theatre. Then in the 1980s, when the economy recovered, we went big time for post modernism, the result being an endless series of bland pink granite and green glass buildings with fake pillars and arches. Kind of a joke on the history of architecture. The 'Barrett Boxes' (named after the big housebuilder of the time) that dot the suburbs are uninspiring, with small windows (you need a reading light in broad daylight), and depressing.
Probably the worst of these is Canary Wharf, the main building of which is completely uninspiring, a mediocre Manhattan or Toronto skyscraper. This the tallest building in London. Or take a look at Number One Poultry from the 90s (Bank Tube in the City, looking West) where a great Edwardian Building (Mappin & Webb) was destroyed to create what is effectively a pink pastiche, or a take-off.
Since the early 1990s crash (spot the cyclicality in the story of London buildings), office architecture has improved (new housing such as it is, has not-- you can see far more exciting stuff in Denmark or Holland, which is just as practicable to live in).
The question of whether these new buildings are appropriate I think remains unanswered. It's too early to tell whether we are going to appreciate this period of London architecture. But I would say of something like the Gherkin (the Swiss Re building) that is it iconic and has become a natural partner of the London skyline.
Canary Wharf I find truly uninspiring, but that is as much a comment on the sterility of the place, as the buildings themselves.
Posted by: Valuethinker at May 12, 2007 9:44:50 AM
thehova
Sorry just to pick up on your last point. I think London has joined the international architecture of finance. Call it 'Norman Fosterism' as he is truly the grand architect of this era.
So London's new landmarks, look a lot like Shanghai's new landmarks.
It is a symptom of the internationalisation of London.
Posted by: Valuethinker at May 12, 2007 9:46:58 AM
valuethinker, great posts. I really enjoyed them.
yeah, I agree. a lot of the newer buildings in London are unappealing.
I have spent a lot of time in Paris. and, surprisingly, some there look fondly towards London's more bold skyline. Although maybe those people whom I've talked to envy London's growing international status rather than the buildings themselves.
Posted by: thehova at May 13, 2007 3:19:55 AM
and Paris and many other european continental cities seem to struggle more to integrate modern architecture into the heart of their cities.
yeah, la defense. i'm not sure that's a success story.
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