I saw a big yellow crane had gone up outside the Brick Lane mosque when I walked past there the other day, and my heart sank. Is this – finally – the start of the minaret project? Let me remind you, the building is a handsome, understated 18th century one.
It was built first of all by refugee Huguenots as their place of worship and then – 100 years or so later – taken over by refugee Jews as theirs. And now, another 100 years on, it's become a mosque used largely by Bengali Muslims.
Each time a new community has moved in, all they have done, effectively, is change the wallpaper. It is the best example of a shared multicultural space (the sharing separated, of course, by many decades) that I can think of. And I can only regret that I won't be alive 100 years hence to see who the new tenants will be. [Guardian Cif] Read more
