h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

My family moved to suburban London when I was twelve, but I still don't feel I know the city. I suspect it's impossible to know a city like London. One knows a neighbourhood or two and each of these places are different.
We moved to Chislehurst, which was originally Kent, but Greater London quickly swallowed it. Chislehurst liked to think of itself as a village, with two ponds and a Common. It was in Chislehurst that I began to be interested in birds, as our garden had a big oak tree and attracted tits, finches and even woodpeckers. There was more wildlife in outer London than there had been in Rugby, Warwickshire, where we'd lived before.
When I got a job in the civil service in London, my office was in Lambeth. In those days, Lambeth was one of the poorer areas, with Peabody Mansions, which had been built to house the needy. I remember the street market in the Cut, selling food, clothes and all sorts of other things. By crossing the river, one arrived in Westminster and the difference was striking. Westmister was full of big, official buildings.
Later on, I worked in the Department of the Environment's headquarters in Westminster, which was known as the Toast Rack - three ugly slabs which spoilt the skyline of the Houses of Parliament from the river. of course, as an office worker in Westminster, one quickly learns the quiet places. I liked walking round St.James' Park and watching the ducks. The quietest place I found was the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
Of course, the city has changed since I first knew it. I remember the big buildings in Whitehall being black. They had grown gradually dirtier since the middle of the nineteenth century and I didn't know they were meant to be white until they were cleaned. The river was dirty too.
Now, whenever I go back to London, I find building sites. The old brick and concrete buildings are being replaced by glass and steel. The skyscrapers are moving in and getting taller. To some extent, that is a pity because some of the famous buildings like St Paul's Cathedral and the Tower of London are overshadowed by skyscrapers. However, I have a feeling that cities like London are almost organic: they go on growing and developing as long as they are alive. London is definitely alive.

Lovely. I only had a few days to walk around London in my youth, but I felt that way, too! Fascinating city.

We had the same problem with blackened buildings in Pittsburgh. They looked hundreds of years old. When they were cleaned, great was the astonishment.

Clean coal, my aunt Fanny.

Thanks.
The two big coal-fired power stations on the South Bank of the Thames have been transformed. One has been turned into the Tate Modern art gallery; the other,at Battersea, is being incorporated into an up-market housing development. Just don't ask the price!

The same when the Three Graces in Liverpool were cleaned in the late 20th Century - it was a great surprise to me and many others that they were made of white marble stone, not black!