Bethnal Green

Bethnal Green
Stairway to Heaven, also seen is Bethnal Green tube station, CoE St John Church and Salmon and Ball public house.
Bethnal Green Location within Greater London
Population	27,849 (Bethnal Green North and Bethnal Green South wards 2011)[1]
OS grid reference	TQ345825
• Charing Cross	3.3 mi (5.3 km) SW
London borough	Tower Hamlets
Ceremonial county	Greater London
Region	London
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	LONDON
Postcode district	E1, E2
Dialling code	020
Police	Metropolitan
Fire	London
Ambulance	London
UK Parliament	Bethnal Green and Stepney
London Assembly	City and East
List of places UK England London 51°31′37″N 0°03′18″W / 51.527°N 0.055°W / 51.527; -0.055

Bethnal Green is an area in London, England and is located in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. It is in east London and part of the East End. The area emerged from the small settlement which developed around the Green,^[2] much of which survives today as Bethnal Green Gardens, beside Cambridge Heath Road. By the 16th century the term applied to a wider rural area, the Hamlet of Bethnal Green, which subsequently became a Parish, then a Metropolitan Borough before merging with neighbouring areas to become the north-western part of the new Tower Hamlets.

Economic focus shifted from mainstream farming produce for the City of London – through highly perishable goods production (market gardening), weaving, dock and building work and light industry – to a high proportion of commuters to city businesses, public sector/care sector roles, construction, courier businesses and home-working digital and creative industries. Identifiable slums in the maps of Booth in Life and Labour of the People in London (3 editions, 1889–1903) were in large part cleared before the aerial bombardment of the Second World War which accelerated clearance of many tightly packed terraces of small houses to be replaced with green spaces and higher-rise social housing.