The Unknown City: Contesting Architecture and Social Space

Around the World in Three Hundred Yards
of these traders are unsung heroes who fight on against unbelievable odds:
their situation is epitomized by the lady in the Chinese takeaway who treats
her customers with the care appropriate to an endangered species, asking repeatedly
if they’ve been away on holiday.
Further down the road from Kendall’s the undertaker is the shop of
Nichols of London, declared by his own pocket label to be “London’s finest
bespoke tailor.” The real name is Nicholas Economou, a Cypriot who knows
better than to sell himself short. He makes high-quality clothes for one of
the larger outfitters in the City, but he also maintains his own clients on
Dalston Lane. The window shows Mr. Economou with one of his more famous
customers, Frank Bruno, the boxer who was a regular here until the
sponsorship deals took over. But there are other stylish figures who have a
regard for Mr. Economou’s needle. Use him for a bit, and the special offers
will start coming through at knock-down prices: a richly patterned jacket
made of a sumptuous blend of mink, chinchilla, cashmere, and lambswool;
trousers in Prince of Wales check or the best white Irish linen; a sparkling
suit made of grey silk with a prominent diamond pattern. One of Mr.
Economou’s more ostentatious customers, a gentleman from Canning Town
to be precise, had ordered a load of clothes in preparation for a prolonged sojourn
in Spain, but he was arrested on charges of armed robbery a few days
before departure and “he’ll be an old man” before he can come back to collect
them.
A few doors up at No. 58, there’s a restaurant called Pamela’s. Not
long ago, this was just another derelict poster site, but remarkable things
started to happen early one recent winter. New hoardings went up, and an
unmistakable designer logo appeared shortly afterwards: it showed a waiter
in tails holding up a tray with a saxophone suspended above it. Serious
money was being spent: a gallery went in, along with a lot of very stylish
ironwork and an elegant parquet floor. By Christmas, a rather Utopianlooking
establishment called Pamela’s had opened for business. Squeezed in
between Jon’s scooters and a boarded-up shop front, it tempted the apprehensive
denizens of Dalston Lane with new pleasures: “a taste of the
Caribbean, a hint of French cuisine” and, may Sir Alfred Sherman take note,
the first “business lunches” to be offered on Dalston Lane. Pamela Hurley is
a fastidious young Anglo-Barbadian who trained as a chef in New York, and
the success of her establishment will depend partly on her ability to create
a new cultural settlement on Dalston Lane. On one side, as she explains, she
has to convince Afro-Caribbean customers that her food is actually worth
coming out for, and not just more of what mother does so well at home. On
the other side, she is going to have to persuade some of the more affluent
whites in the neighbourhood to get over some curious reservations of their