Fitzrovia, The Other Side of Oxford Street: A Social History 1900-1950

This history spotlights Fitzrovia’s enterprising twentieth-century immigrant workers. Ann Basu’s family of Jewish tailors lived here before the Second World War, just where the BT Tower stands today. At that time the women’s fashion trade and the new car industry were sweeping into Fitzrovia; Russian and German anarchists argued in its clubs; Indian revolutionaries practiced at its shooting range; and popular cafes like Lyons’ transformed workers’ social lives. The Jews of Fitzrovia and Soho saw each other as being on ‘the Other Side’ of Oxford Street, and this book reflects Fitzrovia’s distinctive ‘inbetween-ness’
at the inner edge of central London but apart from the West End. This is ‘the other side’ of the story: the working-class and ‘outsider’ voices that have been muted. AUTHOR: Dr Ann Basu has always lived in London. Her mother’s family were tailors in Fitzrovia, living on a site now occupied by the BT Tower. After a 35-year career in librarianship, Ann began researching and writing, gaining a PhD from Birkbeck College in 2010. Her book on Philip Roth, States of Trial, was published by Bloomsbury in 2014. She studied London literature for her MA at Birkbeck, writing her dissertation on Iain Sinclair. Ann writes regularly for Fitzrovia News, a local print and online publication. She is researching local music hall for the 2018 Fitzfest. She belongs to the Camden History Society, and organises monthly talks on historical and political subjects.
30 b/w illustrations