On This Day: June 9

Map

Retroposting For Fun

Last spring, I started up my own Compass server. Compass is a location tracking server. Later on, I downloaded and extracted location tracking dating back to 2013 from Google Locations.

In honor of that, as my website can now dip into that data, I’ve gone into my photo archive to fill in the gaps on my website.

I set up this website in 2009, though I had sites before…and wasn’t really active on it till 2014. But, every so often, I do a little retroposting…some post throwpost posts, but for me, the difference is that I try to date it back to the day, sometimes the minute.

So this week, I’m revisiting June 2013. I added some photo posts for June 10, 2013. For all of these, the timestamps are based on the timestamp of the photo, and the location is pulled from where Google says I was at that time.  If I keep doing this, I may create the blog I should have been doing all this time.

I even added a map of my location that day, screenshot from Compass…in the future, I may replace it with a dynamically generated map using the data points stored…but as of this post, I have only some of that built.

Because, with the present involving some degree of isolation(future historians, there is a pandemic going on)…why not visit the past…?

Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor
Founded in 1854, moving to this location in 1902, it originally serviced immigrants and refugees who needed assistance. It pivoted to assisting the elderly and ill, and remained at this location until 1992, when the functions were taken over by other community groups.
From the email received from Stephen Burstin, who runs Jewish Walking Tours in London.

Spitalfields and Aldgate walking tour in London’s East End….The cost is £10 per person (payable on the day) and the tour is both informative and entertaining, including:

  • A visit inside the magnificent Bevis Marks Synagogue – the oldest surviving synagogue in England dating back more than 300 years and spawning several internationally famous sons. Discover why there was a staggering 156 synagogues in just two square miles of the East End
  • See the Jewish Soup Kitchen, lifesaver to thousands every day;  the first Yiddish theatre in England, scene of a real life tragedy; the site of a fatal gun battle between police and Jewish anarchists; and many other interesting sites
  • Hear heartwarming and heartbreaking stories, from the hilarious spiel of market traders in famous Petticoat Lane to the impoverished immigrants escaping East European oppression only to face wretched living conditions here and a life of toil in the notorious clothing sweatshops (and we touch on other immigrant cultures too). You will also learn about the infamous Jewish Catwalk where unsuspecting Jewish immigrant girls were lured into a tragic life of prostitution
  • Meet colourful characters from the past including the real-life 19th century Fagin; also the secret Jew who became the Queen’s physician; and England’s chief rabbi who told Russia: “DON’T let my people go!”  I will even tell you about the amazing Jewish connection with Jack the Ripper

The tour lasts around 2½ hours and there are plenty of stops and pauses plus a sit down in Bevis Marks for commentary about the synagogue (nominal admission charge to Bevis Marks).

It commences at 10.00am with us meeting outside the Aldgate Underground (Subway) Station – not the nearby Aldgate East Station.