What a shame about them tearing down the old Westminster bridge (if they did...) it sounds amazing with canopy towers and seats in them. It sounds a bit as if the Victorian planners were very similar to those in the 1960s...out with the old and in with the (vastly inferior) new. What a shame...I'm with Nat on this.
I agree up to a point about that, but it's worth looking into the specifics in this case (it so happens I already looked into it this morning when I read Nat's entry):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_BridgeApparently the bridge from Nat's time had subsidence problems; it's quite possible that back then the only solution was to start again from scratch (nowadays no doubt there are other possibilities.) Sure they could have rebuilt it exactly as it was before, but then there would've been risk of the same thing happening again.
More to the point, the bridge they replaced it with is apparently now the oldest bridge in London still surviving, and isn't aesthetically displeasing. So it probably shows that what can be a symbol of brutal modernisation becomes history itself if it survives long enough.
Oh and I enjoyed the"coat" joke first time around too! I may have only read it on catching up though, which is why I didn't post.
