London, after the apocalypse
Words cannot express the weirdness of this photo set.
Some of the places in it, I’ve never been. Others I’ve passed through — like Oxford Circus — but they’re not very familiar to me. But New Bridge Street? Fleet Street? I can point out the corner bookshop, tell you where the post office is, and how many blocks it is to Wasabi, where they have really cheap yakisoba. Which I traditionally eat on the steps of St. Paul’s Cathedral. I’ve gotten lunch in the crypt of this church, and walked through this underpass more times than I can count. This is the London I know — but not.
Words cannot express how bizarre it is to see those places utterly devoid of people. I’ve been there on a Sunday morning, when the City is mostly closed for business and so very few people are in sight, but “very few” and “none” are not the same thing. It’s as if the apocalypse happened, and this is London in the moments before nature begins to reclaim it.
I’d love to see similar photos of Boston, New York, other heavily populated areas — but I’m not sure you could ever catch them quite that deserted, even on a Christmas morning.
