Tuesday, January 19

The Wharf

This what greets people as they exit Canary Wharf tube station. Imagine Monday mornings. Canary Wharf London's answer to Midtown, Manhattan - it is money. One feels the waves of capitalism ebbing and flowing while i bankers filter the nutrients for themselves. Like Wall Street, The City - London's traditional financial district - grew tired. Banks demanded space for their modern trading desks and fat data pipes. The Isle of Dogs, shallacked during the WW II, became the home of bad ass. Bad ass bankers doing bad ass deals making insane amounts of money. Ebb or flow, it matters not. This always so on the Isle - From 1802, the area one of the world's busiest docks until the Krauts put a stop to that. And, I am happy to say, my old firm Credit Suisse First Boston came up with the idea to convert Canary Wharf into back office. Others signed on and the project sold to Olympia & York the year before I arrived at PAZ. The first buildings opened in '91, including One Canada Square pictured, that became the UK's tallest building and a symbol of regeneration. Soon after, the London commercial property market collapsed and Olympia filed for Bankruptcy in 1992. Nobody learns.


Madeleine's school pal Mattie moves to Cape Town next week. Me: "What will you do when you arrive in South Africa?"
Mattie: "I don't know. Watch TV?"