The Memory Map of the Jewish East End: Documenting the History of a Rapidly Vanishing Landscape

The Memory Map of the Jewish East End is a new digital resource and interactive website that allows users to remotely explore the social and cultural history of the Jewish East End. The project is a collaboration between artist and writer Rachel Lichtenstein and three of The Bartlett’s research units: The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, The Space Syntax Laboratory and The Survey of London.

Covering more than 70 significant sites, the Memory Map aims to become a lasting document of the history and memory traces of this vibrant Jewish community. Users are able to listen to the stories, memories and voices of residents from a rapidly vanishing landscape, accessing and engaging with a substantial archive of audio interviews with former and current Jewish residents of East London, testimony and photos from the collection of Sandys Row Synagogue, the oldest Ashkenazi Synagogue in London, and collaborative research from the Memory Map team, including essays written by the Survey of London.

“We are extremely proud to be launching the Memory Map of the Jewish East End. With a wealth of material to explore, we hope that this new site will become a lasting resource for people interested in exploring the memories and history of Jewish culture in East London.

– Dr Duncan Hay, Principal Investigator of the Memory Map

“The curation of this map has generated many personal memories for me of all the fantastic people I have met who have generously shared their stories of life in the former Jewish East End. It is wonderful to be able to share some of this material in a new digital resource, with hours of audio, visual and text content to explore.

– Rachel Lichtenstein, Co-Investigator of the Memory Map

An Open Source Toolkit
In addition to the Memory Map itself, the software used to create it will be released as an Open Source toolkit to enable local history groups, museums, and researchers to conduct their own memory mapping projects. If you are interested in using the toolkit, or have any other questions about the project, please contact Duncan Hay at d.hay@ucl.ac.uk 

Research team
Principal Investigator: Dr Duncan Hay (The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis)
Co-Investigator: Peter Guillery (The Survey of London)
Co-Investigator: Rachel Lichtenstein (Manchester Metropolitan University)
Co-Investigator: Professor Laura Vaughan (The Space Syntax Laboratory)

Visit the Memory Map of the Jewish East End

More information

The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis 
The Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) is an interdisciplinary research institute within The Bartlett Faculty of the Built Environment, which explores the science of cities. The centre seeks to examine and offer solutions to the problems of resource efficiency and effective planning and governance shared by all cities.

The Space Syntax Laboratory 
The Space Syntax Laboratory is an interdisciplinary research and teaching unit established in 1970s at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Space Syntax research studies the effects of spatial design on aspects of social, organisational and economic performance of buildings and urban areas. It has led to a fundamental understanding of the relationship between spatial design and the use of space as well as longer term social outcomes.

The Survey of London 
The Survey of London is based at The Bartlett School of Architecture and has a 126-year history of conducting surveys that record and explore the history of London's diverse districts.

Rachel Lichtenstein
Rachel Lichtenstein is an artist, writer and oral historian as well as Reader in English and History at Manchester Metropolitan University.

Image: The Memory Map of the Jewish East End – Historic Map CC-By-4.0 Reproduced with the Permission of the National Library of Scotland.