On Thursday April 16 various newspapers and online news sites reported that two gay men had been expelled from the John Snow pub in Soho, London for kissing. What followed was an explosion of reactions from the general public and a very well organised Facebook event: a gay kiss-in in the pub. Needless to say, the landlords shut their doors at about 4pm (on one of their busiest nights of the week). This didn’t stop anyone from kissing and making their feelings clear to the landlords.
I’ve recently become involved in a project run by The Hackney Society called Love Local Landmarks. It aims to collect photographs of all the locally listed buildings in the borough of Hackney. Locally listed buildings were previously known as English Heritage Grade III sites. In the 1970s, however, this category of buildings was downgraded to locally listed status and handed over to local councils. Unfortunately, locally listed buildings are not protected and a few of the structures I was meant to photograph have already disappeared. The one below, which you will find on Pitfield Street, is one of my favourite buildings in the whole of East London.
