The Olympic site in June 2010 – more (and larger) pictures
Today is exactly two years to the start of the London 2012 Olympics, and various events are taking place to mark this. The man in charge, Lord Coe of Ranmore (still better known as Seb) was interviewed on the BBC this morning and talked to the presenter about how just five years ago, the Olympic site was an undeveloped wasteland.
It’s a lie, and one that Lord Coe knows is so, all part of a deliberate attempt to justify the Olympics as bringing some great redevelopment opportunity to the area (which might just be true.) These are some pictures from around the site before the Olympic redevelopment, which led to the closing down of many small local employers, along with a few larger companies, some of which did rather better from the forced removal.
The stadium was built at the left of this picture. Nothing remains.
This industrial area on Marshgate Lane has been completely cleared
The stadium is more or less where this building was
This housing estate and tower block was demolished for the Olympic Village
Of course there are many more pictures from the area here on My London Diary (the index page only covers work up to 2007 – see entries under Newham) and rather more on my River Lea site, with pictures from 2000-2005 starting here.
More convenient for some is my recently published ‘Before the Olympics‘, still available on Blurb which packs 240 pictures into its pages, including a significant selection from the Olympic area, particularly from the 1980s before the London Olympics was even a gleam in Seb Coe’s eye. Had he really wanted them on a “undeveloped wasteland” he could of course have chose Ranmore.