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Nik Strangelove’s Brick Lane

March 18, 2021
by the gentle author

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Nik Strangelove‘s father’s family originated from Bow but Nik first came to Brick Lane to take photographs in 1993, when he was studying photography, as picture editor of The London Student. In 1997, Nik returned under commission to photograph Brick Lane for the Express on Sunday but these pictures were not published until twenty years later here on Spitalfields Life.

Photographs copyright © Nik Strangelove

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8 Responses leave one →
  1. March 18, 2021

    This is the East End I remember from my childhood – just brilliant!

  2. March 18, 2021

    Thanks for publishing these marvellous images. Very 1997.

  3. March 18, 2021

    1997! Not even 25 years ago and yet, looking at these wonderful photographs, it seems much longer.

  4. Mary permalink
    March 18, 2021

    A truly wonderful set of images. “All human life is there”.

  5. March 18, 2021

    Wonderful images, with every one of them having a tale to tell

  6. Ros permalink
    March 18, 2021

    The man carrying the bales of cloth over his shoulder in the 10th photo down isn’t Philip Pittack is it? Whoever he is, he’s got a really lovely smile!

  7. Cherub permalink
    March 19, 2021

    Love these photos. From ‘93 – ‘96 I was a mature undergraduate at Queen Mary College (now Queen Mary University) on the Mile End Road. Going to a cheap BYO restaurant on Brick Lane for curry if we had tutorials that finished early on Fridays was a massive treat. Afterwards we’d stop off to buy fresh beigels to take home, another mature student I was friendly with was a lovely Jewish lady and she’d also buy cakes to take to her mum.

    They were very happy days, can’t believe it was over 25 years ago now, how time flies!

  8. March 19, 2021

    Precious

    Thank you.

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