[Jandek] When I Took That Train Cover

[Seth Tisue]

>>>>> "Ian" == Ian H <djhillmeister at yahoo.com> writes:

 Ian> I'm not sure if the best way is to try and identify the era by the
 Ian> cars in the photo.  The most telling bit in the picture for me is
 Ian> the fact that you can see CCTV cameras attached to the lampost
 Ian> above the traffic lights.

I ran this info by Mr. Tyler and he says one, that he's certain that the
Mappin & Webb building was empty by 1986, and two, that there were some
CCTV cameras in central London "since the early 1980's".  I've tried to
confirm this on the web with little success; there's lots of references
to a massive wave of CCTV installations in the early 1990's, but only
scattered references to more limited deployment of CCTV before then.
"Police Surveillance and the Emergence of CCTV in the 1960s"
<http://www.extenza-eps.com/PERP/doi/abs/10.5555/crpr.2003.5.3.27> looks
like it might be a definitive source, but it costs money to view.  Even
the title and abstract show, though, that some CCTV cameras were in
place in England as early as the 1960's, and "most commentators have
dated their arrival to the 1980s."  And at
<http://www.notbored.org/england-history.html> we read:

  1974: installation of video surveillance systems to monitor traffic on
    the major arterial roads in and through London.
  1975: installation of video surveillance system in four London
    Underground train stations.
  1984: installation of surveillance cameras at major rallying points
    for public protest in central London. Picketers surveilled during
    miners' strike.

Not Bored! is an anarchist/situationist magazine that I remember reading
back in the 1980's; I'm pleased to see it's still around.  I think it's
funny that the UK National Consumer Council cites their timeline at
<http://www.ncc.org.uk/technology/technology_invention.htm>.
I'm confirmed the 1975 date on the British Transport Police site.

Anyway, it's looking like 1980's for the "When I Took the Train" photo,
not 1990's.

-- 
Seth Tisue | seth at tisue.net
http://tisue.net | http://www.flickr.com/photos/tisue/