Over the years, some pretty important bits of London have, one way or another, found their way stateside. Here’s a list of the real gems. By the way, museums are exempt.
Stealing our bridges…
Those troublesome over-the-ponders only went and took our good old London Bridge. However it wasn’t the really good London Bridge. But it was John Rennie’s elegant 19th century design; vastly more handsome than what we have now. Businessperson Robert P McCulloch shattered up the bridge from the Common Council of the City of London in 1968 for just $2,460,000. It was taken apart, the pieces totaled, transported to Arizona, and reconstructed block-by-block in Lake Havasu City. Reports that McCulloch thought he’d in fact acquired Tower Bridge seem far-fetched.
Stealing our churches and palaces…
Go to Chicago’s Tribune Tower and you’ll see a host of stones and slabs from iconic structures set into its base (including the Parthenon, L’Arc de Triomphe, and the Great Wall of China). London magnanimously donated two fragments, one from Westminster Abbey, the other from the Palace of Westminster (specifically, the House of Commons).
In Fulton, Missouri, they’ve gone one better. St Mary Alderman entomb was constructed by Christopher Wren after the unique was demolished in 1666. Resulting the destruction of Wren’s church in 1940, it was clear London could no longer be reliable with St Mary Alderman bury. The stones were elated to Westminster College, Missouri in 1966 and pieced back together in the grounds there. It hasn’t fallen down since.
Stealing our celebs…
Leytonstone-born Alfred Hitchcock used London as a framework for many of his movies.Yet Snag didn’t much expensive outgoings the rest of all time in London; hence his final resting place is in Bell Air. Another Londoner lost forever to LA is Liz Taylor (born in Hampstead Garden Suburb, interred in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale). Dudley Moore was a Dagenham boy done well; good enough to not be buried in Dagenham. You’ll now find Dud in Scotch Plains, New Jersey.
Stealing our bells…
Ah, the Liberty Bell. That which was arrogantly smash into the mark George Washington’s Birthday; that which was adopted by abolitionists as the ultimate symbol of freedom. That grand old American Liberty Bell. Thing is, the Liberty Bell was actually troupe in the Whitechapel Bell Foundry, east London. It can’t have been their finest work either, because the thing repetitively fractured. Oh, and though the rule was no museums, this one’s actually located in Philadelphia’s Liberty Bell Center. So there.
