canary wharf

aside from some hedge funds in the west end, london has two main business centres: the city and canary wharf.
i sucessfully avoided these areas until this past month when i took a job in the city. there was actually no real reason why i avoided the city before, it is just that i never had any real reason to go there. now every day i arrived in a metro car that resembles a game of sardines, and i am normally the only woman except for the occassional secretary.
since there is a lot of business between the two, it seems i shall also frequently be expected to go to canary wharf.

According to wikipedia (ever reliable source that it is!) Canary Wharf is built on the site of the old West India Docks on the Isle of Dogs. From 1802 to 1980, the area was one of the busiest docks in the world, with at one point 50,000 employed. According to the guy in a siut i found myself sitting accross from yesterday, it used to be completely cut off from london. The man was telling me that he had been raised in the docklands, back when it had functioned as a seperate entity with its own police force and restricted enterance. apparently, Canary Wharf itself takes its name from the sea trade with the Canary Islands, whose name comes from the dogs which the Spaniards found there (think in latin here), producing the terms Dog Islands and the Isle of Dogs.
but then the world economy changed, and the docks were useless and obsolete by the 1980s. so, the area is no longer a dock, but an english equivelent of paris's la defence, a wierd business complex partly cut off from the rest of the city, and so different architecturally that is appears more of a seperate entity entirely.
the place is a scary testament to thatcher and the 80s. The Big Bang deregulation of financial services in London radically changed the way merchant banks operated. Instead of the small, corridor and office based buildings occupied in the traditional square mile, like the building i am presently working in, the demand shifted to large floor-plate, open plan space which could be used as a trading floor. actually, i find these huge open plan creations horrid, i always feel i am being watched. but, that was the trend of the time and canary wharf is its lasting legacy. everything here is big and over sized. but i will admit there are some spectacular flats in this area. They all seem massive and well built, both unusual characteristics in london! they have large open spaces and huge windows overlooking the whole city. but i guess the downside is you have to spend all your time in canary wharf....