The block of flats in the picture was in Star Lane, at the corner of Manor Road, it was demolished in the 1960s. Star Lane School can be seen in the background.

The ‘Buildings’,  was West Ham Council’s first ‘high rise’ housing. In 1925 the Council decided to build blocks of four-storey flats around Manor Road, near West Ham Station. Between June 1926 and the end of 1928 over 400 flats of two or three bedrooms were built. The flats had a living room, kitchen, bathroom,  separate toilet and a coal store. The first tenants, who were re-housed from the poorer parts of south West Ham,  thought that the ‘Buildings’ were ‘palaces’ compared to where they had lived previously. A few decades later, the area had become very rundown and gained  a bad reputation.