Altab Ali Park

Altab Ali Park is a small park on Adler Street, White Church Lane and Whitechapel Road, London E1.[1] Formerly known as St Mary's Park, it is the site of the old 14th-century white church, St Mary Matfelon, from which the area of Whitechapel gets its name.[2] St Mary's was heavily bombed during The Blitz in 1940,[3] all that remains of the old church is the floor plan and a few graves. Included among those buried on the site are Richard Parker, Richard Brandon, Sir John Cass,[4] and "Sir" Jeffrey Dunstan, "Mayor of Garratt".

Entrance to the park
Replica of the Shaheed Minar monument
Gravestones

The park was renamed Altab Ali Park in 1998[5] in memory of Altab Ali, a 25-year-old British Bangladeshi clothing worker, who was murdered on 4 May 1978 in Adler Street by three teenage boys as he walked home from work.[6] Ali's murder was one of the many racist attacks that came to characterise the East End at that time.[7] At the entrance to the park is an arch created by David Petersen, developed as a memorial to Altab Ali and other victims of racist attacks. The arch incorporates a complex Bengali-style pattern, meant to show the merging of different cultures in East London.[8][9][10]

Along the path down the centre of the park are letters spelling out "The shade of my tree is offered to those who come and go fleetingly", a fragment of a poem by Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore.

The Shaheed Minar, which commemorates the Bengali Language Movement, stands in the southwest corner of Altab Ali Park. The monument is a smaller replica of the one in Dhaka, Bangladesh, and symbolises a mother and her martyred sons.[11]

The nearest London Underground station is Aldgate East on the District and Hammersmith & City lines.

References
  1. "Parks and Open Spaces - Tower Hamlets". London Borough of Tower Hamlets. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  2. "Whitechapel's Free Art & History". exploringeastlondon.co.uk. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  3. "St Mary Matfellon Whitechapel". Middlesex-heraldry.org.uk. 30 August 2009. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  4. "Grave search results, St Mary, Whitechapel". findagrave.com. Retrieved 15 April 2016.
  5. "Aldgate". London-footprints.co.uk. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  6. "Brick Lane Tour". Worldwrite.org.uk. 4 May 1978. Retrieved 1 August 2013.
  7. Keith, Michael (2005). After the Cosmopolitan?: Multicultural Cities and the Future of Racism. Routledge. p. 144. ISBN 9781134294534.
  8. "Altab Ali Arch". Whitechapel's Free Art and History. Archived from the original on 28 March 2008. Retrieved 15 July 2008.
  9. "Altab Ali murdered in Whitechapel, London". An Oral History of the Runnymede Trust, 1968-1988. Runnymede Trust. Archived from the original on 19 April 2014. Retrieved 15 April 2015.
  10. "Gateway to Altab Ali Park". Public Monuments & Sculpture Association. Archived from the original on 14 April 2015. Retrieved 14 April 2015.
  11. Rafique, Ahmed (2012). "Shaheed Minar". In Islam, Sirajul; Jamal, Ahmed A. (eds.). Banglapedia: National Encyclopedia of Bangladesh (Second ed.). Asiatic Society of Bangladesh.
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