Join journalist Etan Smallman for a colourful history of the Finchley Road and learn how influential and important it was for European Jews from the 1930s onwards.
Thousands of refugees from Nazi Europe got to work rebuilding their lives – as well as their continental coffee houses, restaurants, social clubs, bookshops and cabarets – along Finchley Road. So many, in fact, that bus conductors would yell "Next stop, Finchleystrasse!" as they approached.
From the Cosmo, Dorice and Balsam cafes to the Laterndl theatre and Blue Danube Club, the establishments of this microcosm of Mitteleuropa became a home from home for the displaced of NW3 and a tribute to a vanished world.
Etan is a London-based freelance journalist, whose work has featured in publications on four continents, including The New York Times, The Daily Telegraph, The Guardian, The Times, The Independent, FT, Daily Mail, The Forward, LA Times and The Australian. He is also a grandson of two Finchleystrasse pioneers.
