London Underground 1970-1980 By Mike Goldwater: Down In The Dimly Lit Tunnels, The Tube Was One Photographer’s Playground

Wembley Park 1979

The first thing that strikes anyone who regularly rides on the London Underground is how clean it looks in Mike Goldwater’s photographs.

Taken during the 1970s, Goldwater shows us a Tube a million miles up wind from New York’s filthy Subway, a place so disgusting, violent and vandalised that the only respite from the dystopian stench and fear of impending doom was a self-made cloud of incontinence and a Beatrice armoured in a red beret and a ‘Guardian Angels’ t-shirt.

Not that the Underground is some idyll, a place where the sun isn’t silent and the air is sweet. Homeward bound tourists keen to recapture the thrill of minding the gap and cooling their heels on overcrowded platforms are not offered a range of signature scents. But if Goldwater’s pictures came with scratch and sniff cards, panels would feature the odours of guard’s pipe, football fan and warm cat.

More: Hoxton Mini Press h/t: flashbak

Oxford Circus 1978

Kings Cross – 1972

Westbourne Park 1979

Tottenham Court road 1977

Piccadilly Circus 1978

Oxford Circus 1979

Northern Line 1975

Northern Line 1974 – shades of Bob Mazzer’s party Tube

Holborn 1978

Baker Street 1979

Moorgate 1973