'We Grieve': Community project unites neighbors in healing

LONDON (AP) — It’s nothing flashy. But then, it’s not supposed to be.

The plywood wall that surrounds a building site, painted with the words ``WE GRIEVE″ in massive letters, has become a focal point for people of the Stamford Hill neighborhood. It is there that they gather each Thursday to remember those who have died during the coronavirus pandemic.

It might seem an odd venue. But it’s central and there’s space for social distancing — a place for civic grief.

"What we’ve found, almost by accident, is the need for communities to stand together and grieve,″ said the Rev. William Taylor, vicar of St. Thomas’, an Anglican church on Clapton Common.

This London neighborhood is diverse, even for a multicultural city. The common park was once surrounded by terraced houses built for the genteel who flocked to the area in the 19th century. But new groups moved in after World War II, and these days it is most well known as home to one of the largest Ultra Orthodox Jewish communities in Europe.

And, in a way, it is that diversity that spawned the grief wall.

Taylor felt bereft when Britain’s coronavirus lockdown prevented him from mourning with others after the death of his friend Rabbi Avrohom Pinter, a leader of the Orthodox Jewish community.

The friendship between Taylor, who tweets as @HackneyPreacher and Pinter, a leading figure in the deeply traditional community of thousands, may have seemed unlikely. But the two bonded over their wish to build a spirit of friendship among those who lived near Clapton Common.

Among many initiatives, the pair worked together to convert a derelict public toilet into a community center on the edge of the common. The mock-Tudor structure was half-timbered like the Liberty department store in central London, giving the...