Save The Foundry! - action needed

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For the people who do remember Shoreditch before it got all gentrified (I'm too young); what sort of streets/parts of London now did it resemble? Totally can't picture it as a shit hole
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by the early-mid 90s it was already well on it's way to being gentrified and night-life-centric but you could still get mugged by taking a shortcut though hoxton square at night. there were still plenty of working girls along what is now the hipster spice route. overall it was certainly very much quieter.

in about 1995 i was a student and my girlfriend at the time worked as a photographer's assistant at a studio on commercial street and was the hostess at the still great eastern dining rooms. there were a few small clubs such as home, a couple of popular bars like the bridge and tunnel, the bricklayers, cantaloupe and mother at 333, but a pretty limited choice really. it was pretty quiet compared to what it's like now (total vomitty, topshop carnage from friday to monday).

spitalfields was just big jumble of food and hand-made clothing stalls, with a small hot food section selling curries and potatoes. brick lane still had more bengali residents than fixié skidders but it was definitley on it's way to becoming what it is now.

i used to live (doss with the missus) on hanbury street , just off brick lane above what is now the duke of uke shop and soup studios, opposite shop14. there was nothing much of interest on that street back then. you got a bit of foot traffic between the market on sundays and brick lane, and occasional nail bomb.

now, on that same little side street you've got a recording studio, a music shop, a custom bike shop, vintage fashion shops, and a handful of restaurants spilling over from brick lane. the just round the corner there's a tescos, a nandos, an all saints, rough trade, countless new bars and spitalfields is open 7 days a week and chock full of chain restaurants. the previously off-limits "locals only" old-man pubs have been reclaimed by young professionals and tourists. i'd struggle to label it better or worse really. it's certainly much, much busier, more prosperous and commercialised but i don't know if i want to condem that as a bad thing necessarily. what they've done to spitalfields is apalling. there's no doubt about that. they've just killed it. totaly destroyed the atmosphere. but if i was still young and living in the area i'm sure i would have loved having all that lot on my doorstep...

... but then again if i was young i wouldn't be able to afford to live there now. i''d be forced out to whitechappel, limehouse or finsbury park.