History
The Market began on Atlantic Road in the 1870s and subsequently spread to Brixton Road which had a very wide footway. Brixton then was a rapidly expanding London railway suburb with newly opening shops, including the first branch of David Greig at 54-58 Atlantic Road in 1870, and England's first purpose-built department store, Bon Marché, on Brixton Road in 1877. The market was a popular attraction, with lower class shoppers being entertained by street musicians.
Electric Avenue which is now part of the street market was built in the 1880s and was one of the first streets to have electric light. Glazed iron canopies covered the footpath, but these were significantly damaged by WW2 bombs, and finally removed in the 1980s. The song Electric Avenue was written by Eddy Grant referring to this area of the market.
Read more about this topic: Brixton Market
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Classes struggle, some classes triumph, others are eliminated. Such is history; such is the history of civilization for thousands of years.”
—Mao Zedong (1893–1976)
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade-union consciousness.”
—Vladimir Ilyich Lenin (1870–1924)