Well, it's not every day you end up seeing your old work neighbourhood on HN. There's this place that you'll notice if you're walking around in the area called

Well, it's not every day you end up seeing your old work neighbourhood on HN. There's this place that you'll notice if you're walking around in the area called the Business Design Centre. You'll see a couple of expensive cars parked outside, and a throng of people going in and out. It's got an interesting little history as part of London's financial scene that most people won't have heard of, despite being the office of one of the most famous traders in the City. Back in the day, I think the 80s, the area was pretty derelict. This old agricultural hall was sitting there long past its time. A guy by the name of Morris bought it up to develop it into a convention centre. There's a bust of him if you go up to the top floor. The fancy cars are owned by his sons who took over. All sorts of famous events have gone on there, such as Britain's got talent, along with less famous things like industrial fairs. As part of the business plan, they decided to have office units to rent along the side of the main hall. Pretty much like we wework. Also in the 80s, a successful floor trader called Dave Kyte set up a clearing and brokerage firm there. Now the thing about DK is he is very keen to invest in other financial firms, so over the years, the BDC ended up having dozens of tenants associated with Kyte, since this allowed him to keep an eye on everyone and they could share his IT and office staff. They've since sold to RJO, so you won't find the name there now, but there are still remnants of the businesses he seeded. This gave the BDC an interesting vibe. You had all these mini trading floors set in the mezzanine around the exhibition hall, with varying exhibits in the middle, or just a massive empty space on days between exhibits. People visiting would often peek over the blur on the glass and be fascinated by the banks of screens. Some of them would wander in and comment on how many screens there were. This would be interspersed with a variety of office types, each with their own oddity. One office seems to just have a stone obelisk in the middle, with no staff ever to be seen. Then there was the unit that was a permanent exhibit for a window manufacturer. There was a telesales boiler room. The office of an MMO game for kids. Just every imaginable thing. Great area for it though, good food market for lunch and restaurants as well.