East London is the hype for young Londoners, in the centre of this hype is Brick Lane, a place where you find a bit of everything. There’s culture, art, diversity, food, stores, clubs, music, pop-ups, tattoo shops, literary everything. But why it become such a place to go? What is so special about Brick Lane?

“Brick Lane is just

a fun place to be

where good

stuff happens”

Sam, 22 Years old

Well, the story of Brick Lane starts way before I was born, and it’s messy and complicated, like a good book. It all start on the 19th century when the first breweries, and one of the first markets outside of central London, and still happens every Sunday; it was after that when the area started to grow.

In the beginning, it was an area of immigrants; it began to be a place where Irish and Jews people used to live in, back at the start of the 20th century. As the years went on, the Irish and the Jews moved away from the area, and the people from Bangladesh start to get in around the 70’s,  mostly because of the house prices.

“When I came to

brick Lane I feel alive

and connected with the city”

Charlotte, 27 Years Old

Because of that nowadays is one of the places that you can find the best Bangladesh curry in, is the place where are the most houses of curry in London. And is one of the only places where the street table is in Arabic, it even had the name of Bangla town, it was a form of ghettoization at that time, but nowadays we see it as an inclusion symbol, showing that in that area they are welcome and that everything is fine.

As the years pass by East London start to become the area of the arts people, it was not too expensive, and it was close to the centre of London. At that time till nowadays the artists explore the street as a form of art, one of the things that made Brick Lane famous was the street art.

By that time, Brick Lane started to evolve to what it is today, becoming one of the places that you can find a bit of everything.

“It’s funny how Brick Lane

is always changing but

it never losses

the essence of it”

John, 54 years old

This mix of everything was what made this place famous. The fact that different things, religions, points of view, communities living in peace in one small area show the essence of London. The diversity is the fame of this place, and it is what people get from London and hope for the world.

This tiny place in the world show’s how diversity can bring happiness and be peaceful; we need more Brick lane’s around the world.