20th Century sanitation (in the 21st Century)

This is the Greenwich I remember. It's wharves, quays, cranes, tugs and barges were in the nighttime of their lives. All the riverside industries were about to shut down for good.  It was dirty with the accumulation of centuries of soot, grime and filth. It had its own particular smell. It must have been unpleasant to many people, but I rather liked that smell. I can still smell it. Everything you touched left you covered in soot.

This is how the scene of the second photo looks now, taken from just beyond the archway in that photo. Now it's paved rather than cobbled. It's clean. It's prettified. It doesn't smell any more. What a shame.
My Greenwich was a rough place. People worked hard and drank hard. They were fractious. They swore. There was often a bust-up in the pubs. What I miss, though, is the tremendous sense of community. I use the word in its proper sense of being inclusive of the general population, rather than the bastardised meaning of today (the this community, the that community etc). The word community, for me,  should describe what we all share in common. Nowadays it describes what we have in common with a minority, and how we are different from other people. It is divisive.
I still love Greenwich, but it ain't the same place. It's just the carcass of the town, with all its guts ripped out. It's beautiful but soulless, except for the Park of course. That doesn't change. But how I miss the dirt and the smell. And I miss the people (except my own family). The people are all gone too.