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".
The park was renamed Altab Ali Park in 1998[5] in memory of Altab Ali, a 25-year-old Bangladeshi Sylheti clothing worker, who was murdered on 4 May 1978 in Adler Street by three teenage boys as he walked home from work.[6] 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.[7][8][9]
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 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.[10]
The nearest London Underground station is Aldgate East on the District and Hammersmith & City lines.
References
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External links
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