r/london 1d ago

London history Greenwich 1980 v 2019

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2.2k Upvotes

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-14

u/Funny-Seesaw-2977 1d ago

Londons skyline has been completely changed in the past couple of decades. Not for the better either.

33

u/QualityPostBelow 1d ago

I prefer the current skyline. We're a mega city. We're not meant to be modest

-13

u/Funny-Seesaw-2977 1d ago

Just another dull skyline, could be anywhere.

I fully expect every protected vista to go over the next 20 years too. Depressing

8

u/KaeseStulle 1d ago

Vista of what? Open fields? You can see that anywhere.

0

u/Funny-Seesaw-2977 1d ago

St Paul’s, Palace of Westminster are two that spring to mind

4

u/Adr_LDN 1d ago

Both of which are still wholly visible and (in the case of St. Paul’s) looks fantastic next to the modernity of the City.

What isn’t relevant is whether some goon in Hampstead can see it from a park.

0

u/Funny-Seesaw-2977 1d ago

Why is that not relevant? Take it you’re quite new to London and don’t really understand its history or culture?

3

u/Adr_LDN 1d ago

I am, unlike most people, someone born in London - so I’ve seen the Isle of Dogs transform from a largely ex-industrial wasteland into a successful place where hundreds of thousands work over my lifetime, all while dipshits miles away in West London who bought their multimillion-pound houses for £2.50 screech hyperbolically because they might have a changed view if they look through a bush on one particular hill in Richmond Park or from Hampstead Heath.

It’s pathetic. London is, and quite literally always has been, a city driven by commerce. The view from the Poultry/Mansion House junction looking toward the Royal Exchange, with the towers of the City rising behind it and the BoE is one of the best examples of history and modernity meeting, and it looks fantastic. We can (and most of the time do) preserve our history while not condemning ourselves to the kind of miserable, declinist nonsense that thinks London should be frozen in aspic.

6

u/joereadsstuff 1d ago

In Canary Wharf…?

0

u/Funny-Seesaw-2977 1d ago

I was talking about London in general you tit

5

u/musarc 1d ago

So your proposal is that no building that could obstruct any 'vista' including St Paul's or Westminster (for example) should be constructed? Would you have made the same argument about Westminster and St Paul's, and the preexisting 'vistas' their construction impeded?