Camden Town Burning

Camden Town Fire Aftermath
Originally uploaded by Jeff Galasso

BBC news - camden town fire
Londonist - camden town fire
FLickr Camden Fire Pool

I haven't been there for a really long time but there was a time when Camden Town was a destination of choice every weekend - looking for shoes, clothes, jewellery, hair dye, music, clubs, drinking venues, boys - it was the place. There were punks, goths, weirdos, every type of alternative person you could hope to find. Definitely a place where everyone was included in rather than being excluded out. Before the lock market was as big and as commercial as it is today. There weren't any stables or catacombs. I would stroll through the clothes market closest to the tube station, through the tightly packed stalls, clothes flicking back in your face from someone ahead of you, up and down until finally released back onto the high street. Then up the street over the canal and into the canal-side market. Prince opened a shop on the high street, he ordered it to be painted purple but someone had already painted a building in Prince purple so it had to be a pinker colour - to be a little bit original. Later on the market expansion up to the stables and under the railway arches and the increasing number of tourists led to a change in the type of things being sold - less alternative clothing, more things. Second hand and antiques started coming in. A techno clothes shop with ultraviolet lamps and clothes with lights on them. I stopped going when I stopped wearing those kinds of clothes. Every once in a blue moon I got down to look at the furniture and house stuff. Last time I went I was looking for chandeliers - spent quite a bit of time in the catacombes and stables area, missed out the touristy bits altogether.

Shocking to see the flames licking into the air over the buildings on the news yesterday night. Can't quite get a handle on how much of it was engulfed.