Commercial Street is a road

Road

A road is a thoroughfare, route, or way on land between two places, which typically has been paved or otherwise improved to allow travel by some conveyance, including a horse, cart, or motor vehicle. Roads consist of one, or sometimes two, roadways each with one or more lanes and also any...

 in Tower Hamlets

London Borough of Tower Hamlets

The London Borough of Tower Hamlets is a London borough to the east of the City of London and north of the River Thames. It is in the eastern part of London and covers much of the traditional East End. It also includes much of the redeveloped Docklands region of London, including West India Docks...

, east London that runs north to south from Shoreditch High Street

Shoreditch High Street

Shoreditch High Street is the old main street of Shoreditch, London. It is part of the A10 road and connects Norton Folgate to the south with Kingsland Road to the north. It constitutes a segment of the Roman Ermine Street, which ran directly north from London to Lincoln and York...

 to Whitechapel High Street

Whitechapel High Street

Whitechapel High Street is a road in Whitechapel in the East End of London, connecting Aldgate High Street with Whitechapel Road. Now part of the A11 it was anciently part of the Roman road from London to Colchester...

 through the East End district of Spitalfields

Spitalfields

Spitalfields is a former parish in the borough of Tower Hamlets, in the East End of London, near to Liverpool Street station and Brick Lane. The area straddles Commercial Street and is home to many markets, including the historic Old Spitalfields Market, founded in the 17th century, Sunday...

. The road is on the London Inner Ring Road

London Inner Ring Road

The London Inner Ring Road is the name commonly given to a route formed from a number of major roads that encircle the centremost part of London...

 and as such forms part of the boundary of the London congestion charge

London congestion charge

The London congestion charge is a fee charged for some categories of motor vehicle to travel at certain times within the Congestion Charge Zone , a traffic area in London. The charge aims to reduce congestion, and raise investment funds for London's transport system...

 zone.

As the name implies, Commercial Street has historically been dominated by industrial and commercial activity. It is on the City

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

 fringes, and much industry that was seen as too noisome for the City was once exiled to such areas as this. However, since the early 1990s the street has grown increasingly more fashionable.

History

The district was historically one of the poorest, most overcrowded and most crime-ridden in London: a parliamentary report of 1838 described it as harbouring "an extremely immoral population; women of the lowest character, receivers of stolen goods, thieves and the most atrocious offenders". The southern section of Commercial Street was created in 1843-5 as part of a slum clearance programme, and to connect the Whitechapel

Whitechapel

Whitechapel is a built-up inner city district in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, London, England. It is located east of Charing Cross and roughly bounded by the Bishopsgate thoroughfare on the west, Fashion Street on the north, Brady Street and Cavell Street on the east and The Highway on the...

 thoroughfare with Spitalfields Market

Old Spitalfields market

Old Spitalfields Market is a covered market in Spitalfields, just outside the City of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets....

. It was laid out by the architect and planner Sir James Pennethorne

James Pennethorne

Sir James Pennethorne was a notable 19th century English architect and planner, particularly associated with buildings and parks in central London.-Life:...

 along the approximate line of former Essex Street, Rose Lane and Red Lion Street, and entailed the demolition of some 250 sub-standard properties in Whitechapel and Spitalfields. The extension north from the market, to the Eastern Counties Railway

Eastern Counties Railway

The Eastern Counties Railway was an early English railway company incorporated in 1836. It was intended to link London with Ipswich via Colchester, and then on to Norwich and Yarmouth. Construction began in late March 1837 on the first nine miles, at the London end of the line.Construction was...

's Bishopsgate

Bishopsgate railway station

Bishopsgate station was a railway station located on the eastern side of Shoreditch High Street in the modern London Borough of Tower Hamlets; the western edge of the East End. It was in use from 1840 to 1964 when it was destroyed by fire...

 terminus and to Shoreditch High Street

Shoreditch High Street

Shoreditch High Street is the old main street of Shoreditch, London. It is part of the A10 road and connects Norton Folgate to the south with Kingsland Road to the north. It constitutes a segment of the Roman Ermine Street, which ran directly north from London to Lincoln and York...

, was made in 1849-57 and opened in 1858. In both phases of development there was some initial difficulty in finding tenants for the building plots, and much of the street was not built up until the 1860s and 1870s. Only once Great Eastern Street

Shoreditch

Shoreditch is an area of London within the London Borough of Hackney in England. It is a built-up part of the inner city immediately to the north of the City of London, located east-northeast of Charing Cross.-Etymology:...

 had been laid out further north in 1872-6, creating a continuation of the route towards Old Street

Old Street

Old Street is a street in east London that runs west to east from Goswell Road in Clerkenwell, in the London Borough of Islington, to the crossroads where it intersects with Shoreditch High Street , Kingsland Road and Hackney Road in Shoreditch in the London Borough of Hackney.The nearest...

 and the City Road

City Road

City Road or The City Road is a road that runs through inner north and central London. The northwestern extremity of the road is at the Angel, Islington where it forms a continuation of Pentonville Road. Pentonville Road itself is the modern name for London's first bypass, the New Road from...

, did Commercial Street really begin to succeed as what had always been Pennethorne's aim, an artery allowing traffic to bypass the City of London

City of London

The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

.

Until the late twentieth century, the street was heavily dominated by the activities of Spitalfields wholesale fruit and vegetable market

Old Spitalfields market

Old Spitalfields Market is a covered market in Spitalfields, just outside the City of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets....

, and by outlets for the 'rag trade'

Textile industry

The textile industry is primarily concerned with the production of yarn, and cloth and the subsequent design or manufacture of clothing and their distribution. The raw material may be natural, or synthetic using products of the chemical industry....

 (the wholesale clothing and textile trade). Since the mid-1970s, however, the area has been increasingly subject to a process of gradual gentrification

Gentrification

Gentrification and urban gentrification refer to the changes that result when wealthier people acquire or rent property in low income and working class communities. Urban gentrification is associated with movement. Consequent to gentrification, the average income increases and average family size...

. In part, this reflects the changing character of Spitalfields more generally, but in Commercial Street in particular it was stimulated by the departure of the market in 1991 (and subsequent redevelopment of its buildings), the arrival of a number of private residential developments (especially at the northern end of the street), and the introduction of some modest traffic-calming

Traffic calming

Traffic calming is intended to slow or reduce motor-vehicle traffic in order to improve the living conditions for residents as well as to improve safety for pedestrians and cyclists. Urban planners and traffic engineers have many strategies for traffic calming...

 measures. Many of the commercial units in the street are now occupied by fashionable clothing shops or restaurants.

Topography and architecture

The street's most significant features are Hawksmoor

Nicholas Hawksmoor

Nicholas Hawksmoor was a British architect born in Nottinghamshire, probably in East Drayton.-Life:Hawksmoor was born in Nottinghamshire in 1661, into a yeoman farming family, almost certainly in East Drayton, Nottinghamshire. On his death he was to leave property at nearby Ragnall, Dunham and a...

's grand Christ Church

Christ Church Spitalfields

Christ Church, Spitalfields is an Anglican church built between 1714 and 1729 to a design by Nicholas Hawksmoor. Situated on Commercial Street, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, on the eastern border and facing the City of London, it was one of the first of the so-called "Commissioners'...

, on the corner of Fournier Street

Fournier Street

Fournier Street, formerly Church Street, is a street of 18th century houses in Spitalfields, in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It runs between Commercial Street and Brick Lane....

; and (almost opposite) Spitalfields Market

Old Spitalfields market

Old Spitalfields Market is a covered market in Spitalfields, just outside the City of London. It is in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets....

, the old fruit and vegetable market that is now bustling again after a long period of uncertainty. Both the market buildings and Christ Church are lucky survivors, as demolition has loomed for both of them at one point or another.
The northern end of the street is dominated by the sprawling Exchange Building, an old Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 tobacco works; and the former Commercial Street Police Station (built 1874-5, with an extra storey added in 1906). Both are now residential. Nearby, with a wing extending into Folgate Street, is the first tenement block of model dwellings

Model dwellings company

Model Dwellings Companies were a group of private companies in Victorian Britain that sought to improve the housing conditions of the working classes by building new homes for them, at the same time receiving a competitive rate of return on any investment...

 to be erected by the Peabody Donation Fund (now the Peabody Trust

Peabody Trust

Peabody Trust , founded in 1862, is one of London's oldest and largest housing associations with over 19,000 properties. It also a charity and urban regeneration agency...

) for London's "industrious poor". The red-brick Jacobethan

Jacobethan

Jacobethan is the style designation coined in 1933 by John Betjeman to describe the mixed national Renaissance revival style that was made popular in England from the late 1820s, which derived most of its inspiration and its repertory from the English Renaissance , with elements of Elizabethan and...

 block was designed by H.A. Darbishire and opened in 1864, but was sold by the Trust in the late 1970s, and is now a private residential block named The Cloisters.

On the opposite corner of Fournier Street from Christ Church is the Ten Bells

Ten Bells (public house)

The Ten Bells is a Victorian public house at the corner of Commercial Street and Fournier Street in Spitalfields in the East End of London. It is notable for its association with two victims of Jack the Ripper; Annie Chapman and Mary Kelly....

, a pub that is intimately associated with Jack the Ripper

Jack the Ripper

"Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the...

, as two of his female prostitute victims frequented the establishment. Many Ripper tours (a thriving industry) start out nearby. Although the pub has long been refurbished, it still retains some fine original tilework. Prostitution is still a feature of Commercial Street to this day, although considerably less evident than it was even at the turn of the millennium.

Much of the southern section of the street is occupied by warehouse buildings of the 1860s. Wentworth Street (part of the busy Petticoat Lane Market

Petticoat Lane Market

Petticoat Lane Market is a fashion and clothing market located on Wentworth Street and Middlesex Street in East London.-The Modern Market:It is one of a number of traditional markets located to the east of the City of London. A few hundred yards to the north is Old Spitalfields market, which has...

) runs off Commercial Street to the west. On the eastern side of the street stands Toynbee Hall

Toynbee Hall

Toynbee Hall is a building in Tower Hamlets, East London which is the home of a charity working to bridge the gap between people of all social and financial backgrounds, with a focus on eradicating poverty and promoting social inclusion....

, the university settlement

Settlement movement

The settlement movement was a reformist social movement, beginning in the 1880s and peaking around the 1920s in England and the US, with a goal of getting the rich and poor in society to live more closely together in an interdependent community...

 founded in 1884. At the southern end towers Ibis London City

Hotel Ibis

Ibis is an international hotel company, owned by Accor hotels. It has 800 hotels in 40 countries around the world, with over 370 in France and most of the remainder elsewhere in Europe...

 budget hotel, which opened in 2005.

Nearby stations

The nearest London Underground station is Aldgate East

Aldgate East tube station

Aldgate East is a London Underground station located between Aldgate and Whitechapel in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.The station is in Travelcard Zone 1...

, at Commercial Street's southern end. Shoreditch High Street London Overground

London Overground

London Overground is a suburban rail network in London and Hertfordshire. It has been operated by London Overground Rail Operations since 2007 as part of the National Rail network, under the franchise control and branding of Transport for London...

 station is at the northern end, by the former Bishopsgate Goods Yard. London Liverpool Street is a National Rail

National Rail

National Rail is a title used by the Association of Train Operating Companies as a generic term to define the passenger rail services operated in Great Britain...

and London Transport interchange, a short walk to the west.