London by Bus: 1
Route 1: New Oxford St (Tottenham Court Road)—Canada Water
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Is there a better place to observe London than from within its ubiquitous red buses? In this series, ‘London by Bus’, I am venturing to take all London Buses journeys from start to end, from 1 to I’m not going to look, until I either finish or am arraigned by Transport for London for outstanding rent payments.
Except for those indeterminable days when it doesn’t, the London Route 1 bus begins its journey south-east through London across the street from Tottenham Court Road Station, on the northern side of New Oxford Street.
As it tends to happen when you develop expectations about transit, today seems to be one of those indeterminate—though not altogether rare—days where an adjustment has been made, seemingly privately, by the powers that be at Transport for London. After watching all the other bus routes that the 1 bus shares a stop with come and go, I look closer to see a small yellow triangle on the bus route website, two or three pixels from the false notice that the bus is expected here in 2, 8, and 15 minutes, notifying that 1 buses are to leave from Holborn Station.
I make the first stage of the journey by foot, likely more efficient anyway judging by the rush hour traffic that has just released into the West End. London’s rush hour is not defined by a specific movement out of any sort of downtown, it is simply defined by movement itself. Any set of 100 people are walking 100 different directions, intersecting, sometimes quite physically, at key interchanges such as this one: Holborn — the intersection of the eastern extension of Oxford Street and the Kingsway.
I board this slyly re-routed 1 bus at 4:33pm just outside of Holborn tube station, ready to start its stunted journey, and my own. Only four people have boarded with me. I wonder if they find themselves at the beginning of the adjusted route by accident or intention. The bus proceed own the Kingsway, a handsome tree-lined avenue that splits into Aldwych, then meets Strand in either direction. We slants West for a moment, then sets up to approach Waterloo Bridge. The bus proceeds across the grey Thames that is shining as best it can in the setting early March sun. Looking West, the newly revealed facade of Big Ben and the London Eye are shadowy silhouettes, protecting by the glare of the sky and water. There are few distances the London Eye looks agreeable from and this is one of them; from here it is not a hamster wheel, not as an over-towering attraction on a fair ground, but the right size to fit in the distinctive skyline and to contrast Westminster and the square facades of the grand buildings that line the waters edge.
Waterloo Station, or as much of it that can be seen from the road anyway, that is, mostly the ugly parts, is approached and passed with a familiar chorus of siren wails. Waterloo Station used to be the entrance to the entire country; it served the Eurostar from its conception until 2001, and the station was historically the point of departure and — for those lucky enough—return for soldiers. That was a long time ago. The area surrounding Waterloo Station is designed so poorly and feels as if it has been all but given up on. Before you get offended, what else do you call a place the roads give way to an IMAX theatre?
The station itself, a vital commuter train station, is so necessary in its current function that it is impossible to improve it. Most that enter have their ends up, walking quickly, trying to get to their train as quickly as possible, and those that leave have their hands down, walking even quicker, eager to get far away. From Waterloo Road, one of the most repulsive buildings in London floats on top of what little can be seen of the station like a concrete dock in an industrial harbour.
The bus continues south, and turns into the Elephant and Castle roundabout, or, it waits to turn onto it, like kids wait to jump onto a merry-go-round. This particular roundabout doesn’t seem a traffic feature but more of a torture feature, a punishment being so daring as for as to drive in London. Aline of 6 or 7 lights and lanes must be weaved through perfectly and often it will spit you out where it likes, but today it seems calmer thanks to a massive construction project occurring at the southern end that is limiting some of these options. Regularly, the roundabout’s roundabouts have roundabouts.
The main southern roads out of London are like funeral routes. Except, what is dead, or what has been killed, rather, whether by the forces of the Wehrmacht or the equally invasive mid-century local councils, is almost every building that encloses them. Most are dilapidated council estates, some are soon to be dilapidated cheaply made modern condos. The name of the game is cheap, and each diversion of the eyes finds some contraption that is more and more displeasing. We suddenly enter on another roundabout — I had hardly realized we left the last one — whose middle is filled with mounds they stuff pedestrians they have died trying to cross through it. We turn onto Tower Bridge Road and almost hit, and then again, and now again, the 42 bus that has made a similar turn just ahead of us (I’ll be sure to brace myself at this point when I get to the 42).
I am in the front right of the double-decker bus, in the set of seats in front of the stairs on the front window, as near to the road as the driver. The man on the front left has been there for some time—more than is practically feasible. Practically, being on bus this long doesn’t make much sense, for Holborn is a 20 minute tube journey, and Waterloo half that. But who am I to say? This man looks like he has time when he has it, and no time when he doesn’t, a sort of tightly calculated person who knows exactly how long he will be on this bus and why he has chosen to be here. He doesn’t travel in directions: he travels to and from destinations. The man behind him has also been here for some time but uses the opportunity to game on his phone, presumably out of view of a disapproving partner. He plays with intensity, without boredom, with the sort of attitude that he wouldn’t play with if he could just continue at home. And he could have been home much earlier. We are in some traffic, and the man to my left tries to peer around the line of cars filling the street. Is his calculation breaking?
We turn south again and pass the Alaska Factory, which stands out for being the oldest and nicest thing around, perhaps only on account of bomb that hit it but didn’t explode during the Blitz. At some point between then and now they decided to line a number of buildings with some tin and sheet metal so as to make them look like hastily assembled ships. And as if there were magnet effect for this particular building, they are seemingly collected here, rusted and dirty and uneven. We wind our way past a street that once knew beauty; there is an early 20th century school, and a few dots of rundown townhomes interspersed by the ugliest buildings the ugliest sort of bricks form. A common picture of London, and we see it clearly now now, is beautiful Victorian townhouses across a street from ghastly council estates. You wonder, why could one not just copy the other? And you think too of those in the council estates whose streets look beautiful looking out their tiny windows, and those in Victorian townhomes wondering what happened and where the hell they are. Usually, the latter party gets up and leaves and a developer is more than happy to erect an ugly new building, now using the mirror of the other side of the street but sadly one turn too late.
Yes, if beauty is meant to be a mirror, it is a very clouded mirror down in these parts. Any beauty that is to be found; an isolated tree, a house that cheated demolition—almost has an anti-memetic quality, and seems absolutely abandoned. It is a tragic beauty in a way, and you sort of get the feeling you’d rather it wasn’t there at all. I’m not sure why. It is a feeling akin to putting something out of its misery, except the misery is not felt within the thing itself, and instead by what it sees. Sometimes there is the right idea, but the idea is accompanied with remarkably poor execution. In Shuttleworth Park, for instance, there is more concrete than grass, and more metal than wood. Galleywall Trading Estate has traded any semblance of beauty for profound ugliness. There are waste bins where a fountain might have been and any stretch of grass has been untouched for years. Bikes and clothes are strewn out of small balconies. I know the balconies are the size of one bike wheel because the second bike wheel is dangling over the railing.
We pass another beautiful school, and I’m glad that someone at some point made something so beautiful and so practical that Southwark Council couldn’t even figure how take it down, though they must have tried. Council logic follows a devastating efficiency: why have a 14 foot story when you can have two 7 foot stories? The same equation was calculated thousands of times by hundreds of councils throughout the post-war decades. Did they think they invented math? Or the concept of efficiency itself? Did they not realize that those before them had the choice to build ceilings one inch taller than the average male, but chose not to? With luck, there is just enough beauty for the kids to learn what it is, as long as they don’t wander too far outside the school walls. The same misery of the lonely beauty I have referred to reveals itself in the form of a blossoming magnolia. I wonder if it would be more honourable to take it away, if it wants to be taken away: it is the last orphaned tree left in an orphanage. The pizza places around here are not named after coastal Italian town, but instead an amalgamation of adjectives, numbers, and pronouns, like Hot4You — it is pizza I checked, though not closely—and we pass now under the sort of railway bridge so ubiquitous to these parts. The rail came after the homes and they don’t fit together at all. The trains came and the trains won: homes in the way were taken down, fracturing the continuity of neighbourhoods and creating odd spaces punctured by semi-curves of the track. The destinations are anywhere but here, and it makes sense why Waterloo is such a storm of people.
The Posh Hair Salon has stools as waiting chairs. I am unable to find any other way to describe this area, other than to say it is an ugly place. I feel terrible to say it, it sounds terrible to say it, and I hesitate to say more. The Hawkstone Estate inspires more thoughts, however. Why I take so much exception, why the ugliness bothers me so much, is most of all because so many people live here. And without understanding the intricacies of Council housing, I dare say that they do not live here my choice. If we want to inspire lives to be teeming with beauty, to be bent on creating beauty in all its forms, we cannot send kids home here. These buildings are undignified and nearing on inhumane and it is an an absolute crisis: the housing crisis has many forms, and one of them is housing itself. I’ve ignored this sort of building for most of the journey, but it is all that can be seen now, and you are forced to acknowledge that they are the usual, not the exception. We can do better.
The Shard accentuates a sky strewn with clouds that look like the Shard turned on its side. The water is somewhere near. We pass a Dock Office, and approach the Canada Water bus and train station, the stop on the Jubilee line before Canary Wharf. I have been let out into fresh ugliness — more council buildings that rise to 20 stories loom. A new build looms 30 stories higher, somehow uglier, which does not give cause for hope. And at this meeting place of ugliness, old and new, I quickly descend back into the Underground to crawl back to the West End.
