Colin O’Brien has been photographing the lives of Londoners due to the fact that 1948, taking pictures each trade and continuity withinside the existence of the capital. His ee-e book London Life data the very last moments earlier than transformation happened withinside the city
Thames Embankment, 1952
When I became 12, the trams stopped walking for all time so I took this photograph with my field digital digicam whilst the driving force posed for me. I cherished going out with my dad on Sunday mornings for a journey via the Kingsway Tunnel and out directly to the Embankment. It became even extra interesting if we controlled to get the the front seat at the pinnacle deck in which I ought to consider I became using the tram.London Life, with the aid of using Colin O’Brien, is posted with the aid of using Spitalfields Life Books, and may be bought here
Skinner St, Clerkenwell, 1952
Long due to the fact that demolished, the Rio movie became in which we used to head as youngsters and watch movies again and again once more till we were given bored. Westerns have been my favorite and all of us cherished to imitate the actors and shout and clap at beside the point moments
Clerkenwell Road, 1970s
After extra than a century of use with the aid of using loads of families, Victoria Dwellings – as soon as my home – became demolished and I moved with my own circle of relatives to a flat at the twenty third ground of the newly constructed Michael Cliffe House on the alternative aspect of Clerkenwell
Covent Garden, 1973
The remaining throes of Covent Garden whilst it became nevertheless a running fruit and vegetable marketplace, imparting stores and eating places with clean produce daily. These pics have been taken some weeks earlier than it closed for good
Covent Garden, 1973
The fruit and vegetable marketplace relocated to the New Covent Garden Market among Vauxhall and Battersea in 1974
Hackney, early 1980s
One of the remaining rag and bone guys plying his exchange with the aid of using going door-to-door, selecting up metallic and scrap
Regent’s Canal, Bethnal Green, 1987
George Trewby’s impressive gasometer built for the Gas Light and Coke Company in 1889 towers over the frozen canal
King’s Cross, 1974
These gasometers have been constructed withinside the 1850s as a part of the Pancras Gasworks
Nightingale Estate, Hackney Downs, 1999
Hackney Council determined that lots of their high-upward thrust blocks have been disasters as housing and determined to blow them up. Of the six towers that made up the estate, 5 have been demolished. Since 2003, low-upward thrust homes had been built in which the blocks as soon as stood
Long Acre, Covent Garden, 1986
The constructing became being demolished with the aid of using a crane swinging an iron ball whilst guys stood on pinnacle of the wreck and completed the process with sledgehammers. There need to be an less complicated became to earn a living
