#denmark place

[scholarofgloom]

[braindamageeclipse-blog]

“The Spanish Rooms, also known as El Hueco (’the hole’), was an unlicensed bar on the top floor of No 18, which backs on to Denmark Street, the strip of guitar shops and music studios known as London’s Tin Pan Alley. It drew a mixed crowd – Brits, Irish, Jamaicans, a Libyan. For many, it was an escape from the rougher edges of London life. ‘Nobody had a second name,’ says Agnes ‘Paddy’ Crossin, now 64. ‘You went up there, you called yourself what you wanted.’ Below the Spanish Rooms...a separate club known as Rodo’s or El Dandy was popular with Colombians, many coming off shifts at restaurants and hotels to relax and dance salsa. Police were planning to shut down both clubs, which patrons accessed by shouting up for a key. But more than 150 people filled the rooms that night, talking and dancing behind boarded-up windows and locked fire escapes.

“Not long after 2:30am, on 16 August 1980, John ‘The Gypsy’ Thompson, a Scottish-born small-time crook who fancied himself as an East End gangster, accused the Spanish Rooms barman of overcharging him for a drink. After a fight, Thompson took a cab to an all-night petrol station in Camden, 20 minutes away. He came back to Denmark Place with a can of petrol, poured it through the letterbox, and lit a match. Minutes later, 37 people were dead.

“The fire was striking for its speed. Firemen found bodies slumped where they had been standing, some apparently still clutching glasses. Others tried to escape, clawing at walls and windows. Some broke through into the guitar shop behind the club, on Denmark Street, using electric guitars to smash through its front window. Experts took two months to identify all the victims, who came from eight countries.

“But more striking than the fire itself is the speed at which it was forgotten...there was never a public inquiry. The clubs were illegal. There seemed to be few lessons to learn, no institution to blame. This also means there is no official account. My search for details is a maze of dead ends. I contact museums and archives. The Colombian Embassy has no record. The Metropolitan Police’s archive contains only basic facts, which it only releases in response to a Freedom of Information request. An official at St Pancras Coroner’s Office, which held the inquests, tells me: ‘Even if we still had the files, which I very much doubt, you are not an interested person.’ 

“When I return to the newspaper archives, other possible reasons for the vacuum emerge.The Sunday Times described ‘seedy clubs.’ The Observer speculated about links to the Colombian drug trade or organised crime. The Daily Mail said drinking dens such as these appealed ‘not just to minority groups and tired prostitutes, but all kinds of folk intent on slumming.’ In its report of Thompson’s trial, the paper said that he had ‘felt at ease amongst the pimps, lesbian prostitutes, screeching homosexual queens, hash dealers and drooping addicts’ of Denmark Place. No reporter ever interviewed a victim’s family.”

--”Denmark Place Arson: Why People Are Still Searching For Answers 35 Years On”

[wirenightmare]

Denmark Place