Mick Hartley

Further to yesterday's post on Iain Sinclair and the Olympic Site, I've dug up some old photos I took from 2005/6 which give some idea of how the place looked before the builders moved in. Starting off round Carpenters Road, Marshgate Lane, and the Bow Back Rivers:

These next two shots show the old industrial estate viewed from the Greenway, more or less where the Olympic Stadium is now:

And this is looking the other way, where the athletes' warm-up area will be:

And finally there's Waterden Road, once home to a bus depot, a traveller's camp, and the Kingsway International Christian Centre, attracting a huge largely West African congregation. Solid traffic jams on a Sunday; bleak the rest of the time:

All now gone – and not too many tears shed.