Emma Watson and bestselling author Reni Eddo-Lodge are redesigning the Tube map to celebrate women and non-binary Londoners
Reni-Eddo Lodge and Emma Watson are redesigning the Tube map to celebrate women and non-binary Londoners. (Getty)
Emma Watson and Reni Eddo-Lodge are creating a new Tube map for London, with each stop named after a woman or non-binary person who has played a part in shaping the city’s history.
The celebratory project is inspired by the book Nonstop Metropolis by Rebecca Solnit and geographer Joshua Jelly-Schapiro, which recreated New York’s subway map with famous women from the city.
Watson, the Harry Potter star now better known for her feminist campaigning, and Eddo-Lodge, author of Why I’m No Longer Talking To White People About Race, will work with Solnit on the Tube map redesign, a collaboration with The City of Women London.
“The project aims to identify remarkable female or non-binary Londoners who have had an impact on the city’s history in some way,” the organisers said.
“It will allocate them to each of the stations depicted on the London tube map according to their connections to a local area.
“Some of these people might be household names, others might be unsung heroes or figures from London’s hidden histories. The names might be drawn from arts, civil society, business, politics, sport and so on.”
The New York City version of the project includes names like Yoko Ono, Jacqueline Onassis, Greta Garbo, Bette Midler and Nora Ephron.
Early contenders for London’s Tube stops include Amy Winehouse for Camden, Florence Nightingale for Tooting and Zadie Smith for Brent or Queen’s Park.
Historians, writers, curators, museums and librarians will all be consulted on names of women and non-binary people for the Tube map’s 260 stops.
The public can also contribute ideas for the people who have helped shape the city.
According to the organisers: “The [New York] map then became an iconic poster and sparked numerous conversations about public space, history, gender, feminism, and memory.
“We now want to do the same for London, claiming the iconic Underground map for the women who have made and continue to make the city.”
