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Tube: Liverpool Street or Aldgate East. The districts of Whitechapel , and in particular Spitalfields , within sight of the sleek tower blocks of the financial sector, represent the old heart of the East End, where the French Huguenots settled in the seventeenth century, where the Jewish community was at its strongest in the late nineteenth century, and where today's Bengali community eats, sleeps, works and prays. If you visit just one area in the East End, it should be this zone, which preserves mementos from each wave of immigration. The easiest approach is from Liverpool Street Station, a short stroll west of Spitalfields Market , the strange-looking red-brick and green-gabled market hall, built in 1893 and extended in the 1920s, which forms the centrepiece of the area. The dominant architectural presence in Spitalfields, however, is Christ Church (Mon-Fri noon-2.30pm), built in 1714-29 to a characteristically bold design by Nicholas Hawksmoor, and now facing the market hall. Best viewed from Brushfield Street, the church's main features are its huge 225-foot-high spire and a giant Tuscan portico, raised on steps and shaped like a Venetian window (a central arched opening flanked by two smaller rectangles), a motif repeated in the tower and doors.
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