City Gallery

St Pauls Cathedral RSL01_01_01

St Paul'€™s Cathedral from Southwark Bridge, City of London, 1855-€“9. Unknown photographer, possibly Alfred Rosling (1802-€“82), albumen print. This view of St Paul'€™s Cathedral looming beyond the Thames-side wharves is an albumen print from a wet collodion negative, virtually identical to a calotype photograph by Alfred Rosling taken in 1854. It is possible that Rosling tried to recapture the scene later in the decade using the more up to date process. Alfred Rosling was a timber merchant and one of England'€™s earliest amateur photographers. He was a founder member of the Photographic Society and the Photographic Exchange Club. Rosling moved to Reigate, Surrey in 1859, where Francis Frith was his neighbour and later published many of his photographs

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The Bank of England DD97_00538

BANK OF ENGLAND, Threadneedle Street, City of London. A corner view of the Bank of England on Threadneedle Street with pedestrians and horse-drawn vehicles in the foreground. The building was constructed by Sir Hans Soane in 1788 in a 3.5 acre site. A late 19th century photograph by York and Son

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Business, City, Lamp Post, People, Traffic, Urban, Victorian

Cranes over the YMCA JLP01_08_099331

Central London YMCA, Great Russell Street, Camden, Greater London. The construction of the eastern three tower blocks of the Central London YMCA, showing cranes atop and alongside the structure, viewed over rooftops from the east.
It was announced in February 1971 that Laing had started work on a new building at Central London YMCA, to replace an existing building which had opened in the 1910s. The project comprised four residential towers between 6 and 12 storeys high, above a podium and basements. The towers would accommodate 1,200 residents in over 700 single and double bedrooms; staff would be accommodated in penthouse suits on the top of the three lower towers. The towers were built on a two-storey podium containing restaurants, offices, a public library, and shops. Beneath the buildings were basements 16 metres below street level, for car parks, a swimming pool, a gymnasium, a sports hall, and a conference centre. The basements and podium, which were built using reinforced concrete and structural steel, comprised Phase I of the project; the podium was built onto the foundation piles before the basements had been excavated. Construction of the towers began earlier than originally planned: excavated material was removed from the basements using conveyors rather than mounting cranes onto the podium frame, on which the towers were to be built. The towers were clad in 2,000 precast concrete panels and had deeply moulded white concrete window panels, both of which were manufactured by John Laing Concrete in Princes Risborough. The towers were built in Phase II and the building was completed in 1977. A cropped version of this photograph was published in the January 1975 edition of Team Spirit, Laing's newsletter

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