History and video of the area

For this I followed a trail of links, starting at London footprints, which offered a route around the are (url: http://www.london-footprints.co.uk/wknewcrossroute.htm). From here I was told that where today stands an Iceland supermarket a V2 bomb fell during WW2, killing 168 people, injuring another 121-"the worst incident of the entire V campaign" (see url: http://www.flyingbombsandrockets.com/V2_maintextb.html). This also explains why the age and style of the building in this part of the road varies greatly to most of the other, older buildings- as is the case with most European cities affected by the WW2. A search through the BBC's website leads us to the account of Barbara Smith (url: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ww2peopleswar/stories/63/a4901663.shtml) sharing her personal experience of the incident.

Searching for 'New Cross Road' on youtube brings with it largely personal type of footage, often not related to the area. However, there are two clips that I wish to draw attention to. The first depicts the fire of local school, and whilst this did not take place on the actual road it is a digital representation of an incident that directly affected the lives and futures of many living in the area and whilst in the past it would have been transmitted through other media or word of mouth (see Babara Smiths account above) it is now available to be relived in visual form. The second is taken from inside the Cafe Crema and depicts a side of New Cross Road more closely linked to another educational institution in the area. I have put the two next two each other as this sort of juxtaposition of conflicting yet related information is characteristic of research conducted via the Internet.




A third incident that has come up in my search of history of the local area (for example on the wikipedia page referenced in a previous post and also in a report on Deptford, produced by Dr. Gareth Potts and available at url: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/urbanbuzz/downloads/projects_09/Deptford_Case_Study.pdf) is the 1981 fire at 439 New Cross Road in which thirteen black youngsters were killed and which resulted in protests against what was seen as a racially motivated attack. The issue of race is also pertinent in the so-called 'Battle of Lewisham' in which anti-fascists clashed with National Front members and police forces on New Cross Road in 1977 (see url: http://www.irr.org.uk/2007/september/ha000019.html). As Dr Potts report on the area of Lewisham as a whole (and it is in this borough that New Cross Road is officially situated) the are still has a diverse ethnic make up, but I could find no reports of any other major instances of race related confrontations or tensions.