London: Street Art

I appreciate good street art, and have even taken street art tours in Barcelona and Tel Aviv, and went on a self-guided one in Melbourne based on a website. So when Glimmertwin32 suggested checking out Leake Street near Waterloo Station I knew we had a cheap date answer to what to do after our tour of Stonehenge and Bath.

The Leake Street Arches are a series of eight former railway arches under Waterloo Station that is now London's longest stretch of graffiti art. There are also restaurants, bars, and entertainment celebrating urban art. The description sounds edgy and gritty, but it is clean (well, except for some empty spray cans), well lit, and populate with others doing exactly what we were doing ... admiring the art.

The weather was lovely so we did not make the transfer to Waterloo, instead we walked past the closed Eye (I'm guessing closed for winter maintenance, just like the i360 in Brighton), and using Google Maps, we found it.

Glimmertwin32 had told us he was planning to be there the next day, so we returned to see if we could identify his work. He later told me the Gatwick Express wasn't running, so he did not go into London. He posted a picture of what he had been planning on drawing.

Instead, Don and I returned and played the "was this here two days ago?" game while taking new pictures.

Street art is not usually static. There were some pieces covered by Plexiglass to preserve them, but they were the exception and not the rule. We were disappointed to see the scribbles over the one about Lost Time. 

Both nights we took a stroll to enjoy the mid-40s. We saw the bitter cold in our forecast for when we landed and wanted to take advantage of the relative warmth. The first night we walked along the Thames.

Fire Dancers performing

Shakespeare's Globe Theater

The second night we walked directly back to our room -- an 80 minute walk past some iconic London scenes. There were others out enjoying the nice weather. Our biggest challenge was looking in the right direction before crossing the street.

After our first night of bad sleep, we learned an hour plus walk after dinner, and limiting the number of cups of tea we had throughout the day, helped ensure we got a good night's sleep.

On our last evening, we went on a hunt for Banksy. Unlike in a museum, his work is spread throughout the city. A Google search brought up a "Banksy Designated Graffiti Area." Hoping there was more than one piece by him there, that's where we went.

We only found one, and even that was behind a fence, but we did find this take on the Pastor Martin Niemoller's "First They Came For" poem that I found particularly poignant in light of Renee Good's recent murder by ICE agents (soon followed by Alex Pretti's murder).

Banksy

Other likely Banksy's, or at least similar style: