Alex Pink’s Fournier St, Then & Now
No street in the East End has seen a greater transformation than Fournier St, where once were shabby clothing factories, sweatshops and furriers, are now immaculately appointed mansions. In this final part of the collaboration with Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archive, Spitalfields Life Contributing Photographer Alex Pink selected photographs from the collection and then took a stroll from Christ Church to Brick Lane to review the changes that conservation has brought.
19 Fournier St, 1975
19 Fournier St, 2013
20 Fournier St, 1975
20 Fournier St, 2013
21 Fournier St, 1975
21 Fournier St, 2013
27 Fournier St, 1975
27 Fournier St, 2013
29 Fournier St, 1975
29 Fournier St, 2013
33 Fournier St, 1975
33 Fournier St, 2013
37 Fournier St, 1975
37 Fournier St, 2013
39 Fournier St, 1975
39 Fournier St, 2013
Archive images courtesy Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives
New photographs copyright © Alex Pink
Visit Tower Hamlets Local History Library & Archives for opening times, collections & events.
You may also like to read these other Fournier St stories
Jonathan Miller in Fournier St
All Change at 15 & 17 Fournier St
Thanks for a great “before and after” showing a fantastic street.
Loving the doors at #29.
Amazing to think how that not so long ago these buildings went for peanuts and that now the cost to buy would run into millions of pounds.
Fournier Street has many “listed” buildings & should, therefore be on the “Images of England” web-site & data-base. {(I know, because I took several of the pictures)
However, a quick search came up empty, since their serch-engine seems defective.
Most annoying
“No street in the East End has seen a greater transformation than Fournier St”. I guess that depends on one’s definition of “transformation”. Fournier St is still recognizable as the street it was 50 or 100 years ago. There are literally thousands of other streets in the East End which are not in this fortunate position. Surely their transformation is greater?
Beautiful – I love walking down Fournier Street – unfortunately I cannot resist the urge to look in some of those downstairs windows in passing….(sorry people!) – but it’s like being transported to a bygone era.
A fine example of gentrification.
One of your best posts yet. The before shots are exactly how I remembered the area, when I first visited it in 1975. It’s interesting to see that some of the shutters were pressed into use as adverts for the shops.
A before and after set where you can see it’s the same place! This is a positive story and perhaps it should be put in front of the planning committee every time a developer (or a museum!) want to demolish a significant old building.
Really fascinating – especially to see how many of the features which appear ‘period’ weren’t there 40 years ago!
Wow, wonderful, well done!
I find your site absolutely fascinating! What an interesting way to present history! The photographer of 2013 must have chosen a trash pick-up day to take his pictures, judging by the plastic bags sitting by doorways! That’s part of history also, I think.
Thank you for this, I feel quite emotional. As a kiddy when I lived in Brick Lane, I used to accompany my mum to work at D. Symonds in the late 60s and very early 70s. Very happy memories, he was a lovely and elegant man.
Just a wonderful street and so well brought back to life without looking over refurbished!
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Great post, but I think the now / then pics for number 29 are not the right house. The now pic for number 29 is shown as the now pic for number 27.
My grandfather was discharged at the age of 14 from South Metropolitan District School in Banstead, Surrey in July 1897 to ‘Mrs Gousens W Boys Home Fournier Street, Spitalfields’
Does anyone know which building this was and what the ‘W’ stood for please?
The W in Mrs Gousens W Boys Home stood for Working