Few streets symbolise the dizzying changes in the City of London landscape over the past half century better than Bishopsgate on the eastern fringe of the Square Mile.
When 99 Bishopsgate went up for Hongkong Bank in 1976 it was one of the tallest towers in the City at 24 storeys. It also boasted the fastest lifts in Europe. At that time Bishopsgate was a largely run down strip of low-rise buildings that bled into what was then the seedy and impoverished East End districts of Shoreditch and Spitalfields.
Even when that building was badly damaged by an IRA bomb in 1993 Bishopsgate still felt very much “edge of City”. Now it is a cliff face of glass and steel with the newly completed 22 and 8 Bishopsgate blocks rubbing shoulders with the Heron Tower, and 55 Bishopsgate soon to start emerging from the ground.
Now 99 Bishopsgate is to make way for yet another skyscraper, more than twice as high as the incumbent structure, yet still only the fifth tallest in the Square Mile. There are more in the pipeline.
News of the latest tower comes as the Corporation, the City’s governing body, outlines its vision for the next five year, building on its post-pandemic “Destination City” initiative to bring more people back into the Square Mile. It lists its first priority as building “Diverse Engaged Communities” which may come as a bit of a surprise to some of the pin-stripe brigade that exemplified the old City for so long.
The truth is that the City is rapidly evolving again with the traditional financial services that have been its meal ticket for a century or more in relative decline. The new tower at 99 Bishopsgate will have 2,000 sq metres of shops and restaurants as street level and a new cultural building when it is completed in 2031.
The office occupiers are more likely to be into AI — or whatever has taken its place by then — than M&A. Bishopsgate — and the rest of the City — continues the restless reinvention that is its greatest strength.
