Club Row Today

Today Club Row is a quiet backstreet of Brick Lane, just far enough from the market that the noise has largely died down. Some vibrant remnants of Brick Lane spill into Club Row through the scattered clothing shops and graffiti art at the base of the street. The only people who go there are stragglers from the market or the odd local. A large portion of the old buildings from before the war have since been demolished and are now intermingled with more modern structures from the turn of the century.The pet supplies store that once accompanied the bird market has been turned into a restaurant, and all physical traces of the market are gone. The northernmost point of Club Row where it meets Arnold Circus is so peaceful that it is hard to imagine that a bustling trade in yapping dogs and screeching birds ever existed there.

Though Club Row Market is no more, there are plenty of other markets in the area which are still alive and functioning today. Most street markets that existed alongside Club Row have adapted to the current times and the various regulations. Club Row itself is only a street away from Brick Lane Market, famous for its assorted vintage clothing stores as well as its authentic Bangladeshi cuisine. The East End has in recent years become known for its trendy bars and eclectic art exhibitions, and is now one of London's most popular tourist destinations. While there is little on Club Row for the curious, the rest of the East End is very much alive and well worth a visit. As Thomas Burke asserted in the Thomas Nash's Pall Mall Magazine 1932:

[The East End] is as respectable as Brixton, but it is not Brixton. It is as well-clothed as Pimlico, but it is not Pimlico. It is right at the edge of the City, in fact, the City merges into it: but it is not affected by the City. Independent of each other, and without warfare, the crisp, sterile life of the City marches with the warm, fluent life of the East End. London has many souls, and the East End is the dramatic soul of London.