Destination: Whitechapel and Spitalfields

For the last 30 years, the literary reputation of the working-class London neighborhoods of Spitalfields and Whitechapel has revolved around two men: Nicholas Hawksmoor and Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper, I trust, needs no introduction, and in recent years the architect Hawksmoor's reputation as a designer of churches has begun to rival that of his 18th century contemporary Sir Christopher Wren. But in pop culture both men have also become the focuses for a protean web of mysticism, conspiracy-mongering and alternative mythology.

At Salon, very good.