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Hitchcock Mosaics


I was in Leytonstone, in London's far East End, out past where the Olympics will be held next year, in 2012 (Eyewear readers may recall that one of my first ever posts, in 2005, was about the announcement that London had won the bid).  I was reading out there today with John Stiles, and with a band, Public Speech (worth checking out for their online hit, 'The Queen's Speech').  Anyway, the Leytonstone tube station features 17 mosaics honoring Alfred Hitchcock, the greatest British film director of all time, who was born there in 1899.  There are some lovely buildings in Leytonstone, but trying to locate the house where Hitch was born was sad, because 517 High Road is now a petrol station (it must have been an area bombed in the war).  Anyway, the mosaics are brilliant, and really should be on every visitor's radar.  Above is the one for 'North by North-West' with the famous crop-duster scene.

Comments

John Stiles said…
was good to see you n Sara Todd thanks again for coming...John
Jason said…
I used to live in Leytonstone and loved those mosaics. I bought a set of postcards of them from Waltham Forest library. Don't know if they still sell them. I use them as bookmarks, and since I always have several books on the go at once, each one I open has a surprise mosaic waiting for me.

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