270 Tube stops will be renamed after inspirational women and non-binary people who have marked London in their own way, in a project to recreate an alternative London Underground map. This has been spearheaded by two inspirational British women themselves – Emma Watson and Reni Eddo-Lodge.
Inspired by the viral project of Rebecca Solnit and Joshua Jelly-Schapiro in Nonstop Metropolis, Eddo-Lodge and Watson are adapting iconic London stations in ‘The City of Women London project’.
As well as organising alongside The Women of the World Foundation, historians, librarians, writers, and the public have also been asked to submit their own ideas, in order to change the way we “think of the tube – or public space”, and “further contribute to the way London is imagined, navigated and lived.”
“Some of these people might be household names, others might be unsung heroes or figures from London’s hidden histories.”
The project will be published by Haymarket Books on ‘International Women’s Day’ on 8 March.
The organisers stated that: “The project aims to identify remarkable female or non-binary Londoners who have had an impact on the city’s history in some way. It will allocate them to each of the stations depicted on the London tube map according to their connections to a local area.
“Some of these people might be household names, others might be unsung heroes or figures from London’s hidden histories. The names might be drawn from arts, civil society, business, politics, sport and so on.”
Whilst the New York City metro alternative includes Yoko Ono and Nora Ephron, suggestions for its London counterpart have included Zadie Smith for Brent, Virginia Woolf for Russell Square, Amy Winehouse for Camden and Florence Nightingale for Tooting.
Submit your own suggestions here.
Meg Amin
Featured image courtesy of @josephbalzanodev via Unsplash.