It’s hard to know what we loose until it’s gone. I have lived in London Fields for seven years. My first 'cafe-office’ was Look Mum No Hands! on Mare Street. When it closed, Martello Bar briefly became a refuge. But my favourite scene was ACE Hotel on Shoreditch High Street. American-born ACE had mastered the culture of interlaced communities. Who couldn’t afford a room could instead idle downstairs and order coffee, wine and cocktails or just curl in sofas. And so, ACE Hotel became a truly diverse market to meet up, work, date, or chill after shopping, because money wasn’t its point of entrance.
When
Mare Street Market launched in 2018, it naturally became my new social space. Alike many independent creative I couldn’t afford We Work and wouldn’t have taken an office there in a million years. MM instead was fair. A market place to eat, drink, work, meet, buy flowers, stream a beard, shuffle through records, seat in tandem with a client, or have a pizza with babies and dogs. It has succeeded where most pubs failed. It’s a space for everybody.
Photography & text Claudine Boeglin @dandyvagabond
Edited with curator Sherine Geagea @titusbeyrouth
