Avacyn
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Post by Avacyn on Apr 27, 2018 22:54:49 GMT
Whitechapel surfaced elsewhere, so I thought I would start off a new thread, and collate the existing posts here, to enable proper focussing on the topic. I think there may be more to this. First of all, is the fact you had Jack the Ripper operating - for the most part - in Whitechapel. Then... It's probably a mere coincidence but the band of Peaches husband had a song called Whitechapel: Peaches Geldof moved to Whitechapel
Whitechapel in Jack the Ripper’s time was a terrible place, but it later became gentrified and fashionable: “She is still only 22, but Peaches Geldof is to be married for the second time. Bob Geldof’s daughter tells Mandrake that she has become engaged to Thomas Cohen, a 20-year-old “indie” rock singer, whom she met in January. “Me and my fiancé just went to get a mortgage for a house,” the television presenter and model says …‘It’s a nightmare, because I’m self-employed, but we got one finally. We’re moving to Whitechapel, to a three-bedroom Victorian conversion, which we got for pretty cheap. We’re moving in around January. It’s really exciting.’ www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/8948354/Peaches-Geldof-is-to-marry-for-second-time-at-the-age-of-22.html Peaches wanted pigs for her Whitechapel home
“The pregnant socialite, 22, is thinking about getting pigs in her new Whitechapel home. Her boyfriend Thomas Cohen, 21, admitted: “Peaches is obsessed with pigs. “We might get them at Whitechapel because she loves them so much.” Well, we suppose that’s definitely one way to bring home the bacon.” www.dailystar.co.uk/showbiz/goss/233799/Peaches-n-porkieI wonder whether the Victorian house had a garden - they are not too common in that area. Pigs in a Whitechapel house
I don’t think that Peaches ever got her pigs in Whitechapel, but there was a precedent for keeping them there. Whitechapel at the time of Jack the Ripper had London’s worst slums, worst overcrowding and the highest death rates. The conditions were horrific: “Every room in these rotten and reeking tenements houses a family, often two. In one cellar a sanitary inspector reports finding a father, mother, three children and four pigs! In another room a missionary found a man ill with small-pox, his wife just recovering from her eighth confinement, and the children running about half naked and covered with dirt. Here are seven people living in one underground kitchen and a little dead child lying in the same room. Elsewhere is a poor widow, her three children, and a child who had been dead thirteen days…Where there are beds they are simply heaps of dirty rags, shavings or straw, but for the most part these miserable beings find rest only upon the filthy boards...” www.jack-the-ripper-tour.com/east-end-history/Just a coincidence... I am sure there is more to come! |
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Apr 29, 2018 7:37:15 GMT
Sherlock Holmes Whitechapel mash-ups
The name Whitechapel evokes pictures of Jack the Ripper in the fog. Several Sherlock Holmes tribute mysteries are set in the area. I like these pictures:  
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Post by truthseeker on Apr 29, 2018 10:44:39 GMT
Am I right to assume that the city district Whitechappel has no actuall white chappels on its land? There are a lot of white chappels in this world. For example the one in Montmartre Paris but I assume there wouldn't be much use in naming them all.
One of Peaches Ex-boyfriend was Faris Badwan and his band the Horrors had a song called "Death at the Chappel"
(I believe this song is about the Beatles and Tara Browne but I can't proof it and it would take me to long to explain to you why I believe it.)
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Apr 29, 2018 17:57:03 GMT
Whitechapel and the white chapel
There was a small whitewashed church in the area in the 13th century. It stood in a prominent position just off the main road. It was known as the cealba capella or White Chapel (aka St. Mary Matfelon), and gave its name to the area. It was replaced by a new, larger church in the late 1300s, as the community had grown. Although there is nothing special about the origin of the name, it makes me think of the whited sepulchre (weisses grab for truthseeker) in the Bible.
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Post by UnseenI on Apr 30, 2018 6:36:31 GMT
Recent history of the White Chapel site
A third church, St Mary’s, was built on the site and opened in 1877. It was devastated by a fire three years later and rebuilt, only to be destroyed by enemy action in 1940. The site was turned into St. Mary’s Park, with just a few graves and stones remaining from the past. It was renamed Altab Ali Park in 1998 in memory of a Bangladeshi man who was murdered in 1978. The park is rather bare and bleak. A new feature was installed in 2011: some modern stonework that is intended to look like archaeological remains. It looks a bit Masonic to me:  
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Apr 30, 2018 6:38:37 GMT
Whitechapel places of worship then and now
The brilliant whitewash made the White Chapel stand out in its day - over 700 years ago; today we have something very different to attract the attention: the East London Mosque. This Mosque stands just up the road from the White Chapel site that is now Altab Ali Park. This site was excavated in 2010 and the remains of the original 13th century White Chapel were uncovered:  
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Apr 30, 2018 6:41:39 GMT
Virtual visit to today’s Whitechapel
The Londonist reported something of interest to people who are unable to visit the area in person: “If you have any interest in Whitechapel, take a look at this magnificent web site. Histories of Whitechapel maps the area in unprecedented detail. The zoomable map allows you to click on any building in central Whitechapel, where you'll find information on the building's age, function and history. The more important buildings carry detailed histories, often with video footage, archive material and — crucially — the memories of people who worked and lived in the area.” You can click on Altab Ali Park on the map and get a lot of information about the site and the churches that previously occupied it. Survey of London’s Whitechapel Project is here:
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Post by truthseeker on Apr 30, 2018 8:07:30 GMT
I like to imagine the original white chappel as a very beautiful and elevated building that -how can I word it in english- gave religios people religious feelings that were more grand that the ones beeing triggered by other churches. I makes me wonder if the fact that Whitechappel became a place of poverty and possibly dirt a few hundred years later makes me wonder if it was due to forces who hate and mock everything that is good and holy and/or due to forces who like to inverse everything. But this is mere speculation because I don't really know how Whitechapel looked 800 years ago.
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UnseenI
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Post by UnseenI on Apr 30, 2018 16:05:27 GMT
You are thinking of beautiful cathedrals truthseeker! They really do elevate the spirit. Many attempts were made during the Second World War to destroy St. Paul’s Cathedral to demoralise the British people. The wonderful Gothic Coventry Cathedral was not so lucky: bombing turned it into a shell in the war. Whitechapel was always a poor area. The original White Chapel would have been a simple, small box-shaped building made out of soft limestone and not very durable. I learned a new word from this investigation: ‘clunch’ is a soft, chalky limestone. The church also became too small to hold the growing population in the area. People did expand and refurbish the church on the site over the years but it was never really special. |
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Post by UnseenI on Apr 30, 2018 16:25:16 GMT
13th century British chapel
Imagine this one covered in whitewash, and it will resemble the original White Chapel: 
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Post by UnseenI on May 1, 2018 9:04:52 GMT
Stalin, a pharaoh, an Egyptian white chapel and jubilee connections
You mentioned other white chapels truthseeker . I agree that there is not much point in naming them all, but this one has some relevance to Whitechapel: “The White Chapel of pharaoh Senusret I, also referred to as the Jubilee Chapel of Senusret I, was built during the Middle Kingdom of Egypt. During the New Kingdom it was demolished and used as filler for the Third Pylon of the temple of Karnak, Precinct of Amun-Re. In 1927, the dismantled pieces were found inside the Third Pylon of the main temple, constructed in the time of Amenhotep III, at Karnak, and between 1927 and 1930 all of the pieces were carefully removed. These pieces were then assembled into the building that is seen today in the Karnak Open Air Museum.“   en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_ChapelSome unexpected connections: Josef Stalin arrived in London as a political refugee in 1907. He moved into a tenement flat at 77 Jubilee Street in Whitechapel. The building has since been demolished. “Some insights into Stalin's political and aesthetic thinking might perhaps be gleaned by reading his favorite novel, Pharaoh, by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus, a historical novel on mechanisms of political power.” www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Josef_Stalin
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Post by UnseenI on May 2, 2018 6:11:16 GMT
Faris Badwan was beaten up in Whitechapel
From 2006: “The Horrors frontman Faris Badwan has been beaten up in London – and he told NME.COM he’s “never been so angry in his life”. The singer was punched as he walked down Whitechapel Road in the east of the city at around 3am this morning (August 12). Badwan who has been forced to make an emergency visit to the dentist today, told NME.COM that he has a chipped tooth and a bloody nose, but is as yet unsure as to whether his injuries will affect the band’s forthcoming recording schedule. Recalling the incident, he said: 'I was walking down Whitechapel Road, and this guy stopped said ‘Are you a boy or a girl?’ – then he said it again, and I told him where to go. “After that he attempted a couple of punches, and got me with third one. I chipped a tooth. I had to sit in A&E for three hours.'”  Read more at www.nme.com/news/music/the-horrors-156-1361439#1sCMy5LB5Zl8Xe9m.99
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Post by UnseenI on May 3, 2018 18:13:55 GMT
Another Horrors & Whitechapel connection
The Whitechapel Horrors is a 1993 mystery pastiche novel written by Edward B. Hanna, featuring Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson investigating the Jack the Ripper murders. 
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Avacyn
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Post by Avacyn on May 29, 2018 23:13:53 GMT
Another one. The author has been curator for the City of London Police Museum:  |
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It's probably a mere coincidence but the band of Peaches husband had a song called Whitechapel:
Peaches Geldof moved to Whitechapel
