"Where the hell are you?!" Since I'm late to just about everything, this wasn't an unusual text message to receive. The problem is I was also riding aimlessly through east London having forgotten to check out where this party was happening. Luckily I got another text message a few minutes later, "We're on top of Old Street Roundabout!"
Huh? ... Now I'm by no means a born-and-bred Londoner, but I could've been sure that Old Street Roundabout was no place for parties. As far as I was aware, the TfL had been talking about turning this grey, mound of concrete into something interesting for years, but somehow still hasn't made it happen.
Well it turns out I was both wrong and right. The roundabout had - in fact - turned into something awesome. But it wasn't the government that did it.
Some genius (apparently these Burger guys) had decided that the old dilapidated traffic circle may not actually be such a bad place to start a business... They decided to apply for a temporary venue, clean up the trash, and stick up a few stalls. BOOM! A cool idea is born, and East London has an awesome new place for people to check out.
Last Wednesday the new venue hosted an awesome DJ set, a photography exhibition and tonnes of dancing. As I was heading through the underground tunnels up into the new venue, I was pretty psyched to check out the party. But while I LOVE music and I love parties - I gotta say - I was far more impressed with how fast this part of the city had transformed from what they had built! (Yah... NERD!).
What can take governments decades, a motivated person with an interesting business idea, seems to be able to do in weeks. Crazy ideas constantly seem to become a reality in this city. Thank God for people with vision... I can't wait to see what happens next!
A few shots from Lee's #moveyourlee Old Street party above... Yew!
