Monday Miscellanea

Last week on Londonist in numbers and the photo those numbers translate into...

200,000 people got together in the cold and dark to see some fireworks, for some reason

10 year-old Tube map discovered in Edgware Road

202.5 metres tall is the height of Heron Tower, beating London's current tallest tower, Tower 42

6 acres of spare London real estate needed for HS2

200,000 / 10 - 202.5 + 6 = 19,803.5 which, when rounded up to 19,804, turns out to be the interior of Persephone Books as snapped by pfig for the Londonist Flickr pool.

This Week In London’s History

Monday - 4th January 1698: The Palace of Whitehall is destroyed by fire.

Tuesday - 5th January 1964: The Underground’s first automatic ticket barrier is installed at Stamford Brook station. Wednesday - 6th January 1725: The doors to Guy’s Hospital are opened for the first time. 60 patients are admitted. Thursday - 7th January 1928: In the early hours of the morning, the waters of the Thames reach the highest level ever recorded in London (5.55 metres above the datum line). The resulting flood drowns fourteen people, destroys the homes of thousands more, and causes massive damage to the collections of the Tate Gallery. Friday - 8th January 1991: A packed rush hour train carrying over one thousand commuters collides with the buffers at Cannon Street station, killing one person and injuring hundreds more.

Random London Quote Of The Week

Under the brown fog of a winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many,

I had not thought death had undone so many.

Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled,

And each man fixed his eyes before his feet.

Flowed up the hill and down King William Street,

To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours

With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine.

Nation's favourite, T. S. Elliot