On Tuesday, Marcia and I met at the St John's Wood tube station, armed with our new cameras, and prepared to take photos as we walked around London. Marcia arrived at the station before I did and witnessed a well-dressed woman having an argument with one of the transport workers there; she was yelling and waving her finger at him. When I arrived, another worker was posting a sign, announcing that the station would be temporarily closed. Apparently, the police had been called to deal with the woman, and they didn't want additional customers on the platform.
It wasn't long before three separate police cars with sirens blasting raced to the scene. Each of the cars was quickly parked and the officers disappeared into the station. Marcia and I waited around outside for a few minutes, thinking we might get a picture of the handcuffed offender being removed.
However, our interest in scandal was soon overrun by our desire to continue our planned explorations for the day. And once they re-opened the station again - we went downstairs.
As we made our way to the southbound platform, though, we peeked onto the opposite northbound area, and saw the policemen standing around a woman who was apparently doing a lot of explaining. Obviously, nothing had been resolved as yet.
Marcia and I both chuckled at the idea of closing the station because an irate customer yelled at a worker. We couldn't imagine that happening in New York. Just think of all the resulting disruptions in service New Yorkers would have to live with.
Later, we were both walking along Edgware Rd, an area with many Middle Eastern restaurants and stores. We stopped briefly at one green grocer, admiring the produce on display and trying to identify one of the vegetables that neither of us recognized. As we walked on along the street we suddenly heard a loud bang and crashing sound from the green grocer area. It was a shocking noise and everyone on the street stopped and turned. One woman started running down the sidewalk toward the crash, as if she were looking for someone. We saw a small cloud of dust and smelled something metallic. Men quickly gathered around the crash site, but were careful not to get too close. Marcia and I slowly started to walk back, commenting to ourselves how we had been standing there less than five minutes ago. Again we heard police sirens and saw the cars careening to the scene.
The pictures below show you what we saw. After a while it was decided that part of the overhanging canopy had collapsed, causing the shelf below to fall and spill out its contents onto the sidewalk.
It was such a small amount of damage, given the loud noise it made.
That night, at home, I looked on the web to see if anything about the incident appeared in the local news. It hadn't. I did discover, though, that it was one day after an anniversary of a bombing that took place on the Edgware Rd tube station in 2005 in which many people were killed. The experience today gave me just a small sense of what it must be like when a bomb goes off in a neighborhood.
I am happy to say that the remainder of the day offered no more incidents. We stopped at a local restaurant and had a delicious lunch of tabbouleh, falafel, and a chicken stew-like dish. We took lots of pictures - and we made it home before the rain started up again.
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