In the 1920s, the Wickham family decided to demolish a row of shops in London’s East End, in order to build a grand new department store – one that could rival Harrod’s and Selfridges in the West. They signed a big budget contract with the builders, and shipped in all the stone at great expense. There was just one problem: one of the shopkeepers didn’t want to sell…
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FURTHER READING
Story of the buildings on Lookup London – https://lookup.london/spiegelhalter-mile-end-road/
Spiegelhalter family history about the shop – https://www.yorkbeach.co.uk/family_history/spiegelhalter/shop.html
Department Stores Of My Youth by Stories of London: stories-of-london.org/youth/
PHOTO CREDITS
Nail House by Zhou Shuguang – https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Chongqing_yangjiaping_2007.jpg
source
It's not 'being stubborn', it's refusing to be bullied.
If that was Canada or the US for that matter they would have been evicted regardless of rather or not they owned the property or land around it. Up is realistic minus the floating house.
Probably should've seen if the Spiegelhalters would've allowed them to redo their shops façade to match the rest of their building – maybe tossing in an extra couple of floors to sweeten the deal…
Doesn't make sense in China, as all land is owned by government entities.
They should've let them demolish the shop to finish the building instead of keeping the facade for historical purposes.
We have our own nail house in Haarlem, The Netherlands. It's a pharmacy called Van der Pigge, still going strong as a herb/drugstore, around which the department store V&D was built in the 1920's. V&D went bankrupt around 2016.
Germans being stubborn? preposterous old chap…
A very similar story as the Victory hotel in Amsterdam. (Right across from Amsterdam Central station). The is a movie made about this story called ‘Publieke werken’ or ‘A Noble Intention’ in English.
Now a Tesco and Sports Direct – how the mighty have fallen, LOL
There's an analogous situation in San Antonio, Texas, USA. The famous Joske's Department Store was in expansion mode and tried without any success to buy out the small St. Joseph Catholic Church. So, the five-story Art Deco store building (now called "Shops at Rivercenter") was built very tightly around the church property on three sides. See the third photo in the Wikipedia article "Joske's" for an excellent view.
Simple problem that could be solved simply by just talking, some people are just to arrogant.
Warning: Extremely British Reference – "Anyone can fall in love…"
In America they would have offered a price to the owner and if they refused they’d tear their house down without paying them. If you think that’s a joke, remember in America you do not own the land your house is on. And they’ve done this throughout history, mainly for railroad and actual highway construction still to this day.
no living space in there? g5, 19May2022
They really went ahead of themselves with this one. Buying building block before buying the rest of the houses
5:35 "thanks to a local campaign, the historic frontage was saved"
Well, this is stupid. I am 100% for respecting the wishes of the Spiegelhalters while they were there, but after they left, it was clearly time to finish the structure, and the local council are now stuck with an embarrasing eyesore. Great move, that, not.
3:24 the tower is nearly a 1:1 replica of „debenhams and freebodies“ department stores tower.
I've walked past these buildings so many times during my time as a student at Queen Mary U but never even noticed this!
Love the way they just split the design it two. Surely there was a more elegant way to include the jewellery shop
Van der Pigge in Haarlem in the Koningstraat there is look like such a building. In the Netherlands.
Macy's in New York had the same issue with a building in the corner.
motherland is russia tho?
There's a farm right in the middle of Narita Airport, Japan! You can even see it when landing there. Didnt know those places had a name hehe
UP movie vibes. Based.
good! stick it to those rich bastards and screw their delusions of grandeur!
That's brilliant
I LOVE this story❤️the little white house is so cute there, looks like it has a soul and a heart!
You have just explained a 20 year old mystery for me 👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽
Looks like they trashed old Spiegelhalter's for an empty hole.
Am surprised that the Chinese actually respect private land ownership….
I think they need Mr. Darcy to settle the matter
England is not a motherland just motherfucking land
Damn Germans.
That’s abhorrent! Just awful to look at.
They had already moved once (with a huge profit!!!), why not move twice?
Like a lost tooth in an expensive wedding cake. You sir, are a great wordsmith.
Amsterdam has the same sort of story , they even made a movie about it
There is a place like this in my neighborhood in Portland, 4 story appartment complex takes up an entire block and there is just one other building on the block: a house someone refused to sell, I think they sold the house and then it got re-zoned so now it's a cute little house shaped 2 story office building with a nice garden
This jewish stubborn Mr. Spiegelhalter was a hero! Stay your ground everyone!!!
They should have just built their own jewellery on the other side of the tower.
The East will never be money. Low class, people.
Coronation street
It sounds like the story of the Victoria Hotel in Amsterdam, opposite Centraal Station. That would make a good video!
That's hilarious