A state-of-the-art Chinese Antarctic icebreaker decorated with red bunting, ribbons and flags is berthed at one wharf, manned by security men in red jackets.
To many New Yorkers, the city waterfront is still -- as John Krevy, one wharf business owner, put it -- "Marlon Brando, crime, corruption and, eeuuuww, disgusting".
On one measure, Canary Wharf remains among the most diverse workplaces in the world: European, American and Asian accents almost drown out the City's traditional blend of posh and estuary English.
Jim Fitzpatrick MP, whose Poplar and Limehouse constituency has among the highest concentrations of leasehold in England, told the Commons of battles between residents of one Canary Wharf block and their freeholder, billionaire John Christodoulou.
He teased them as he chugged beers on the wharf, telling one group that he caught the shark with a rod and reel.
But an ongoing dustup over noise and quality-of-life complaints has focused the conflict on one particular spot, Woody's Wharf, whose owners have sought an official extension to their operating hours and an allowance for patron dancing, first from the Planning Commission and then from the City Council.
In their tiny, ramshackle playhouse on a wharf, they produced his one-act sea play Bound East for Cardiff.
Among the Boston-area projects he helped develop were Rowes Wharf, One Post Office Square and 75 State Street, as well as thousands of units of affordable housing.
"We buy them in this shape and junk them," Teresa Higgins said of her 1983 Chevy Suburban, which she had parked at a Chebeague wharf one day in August.
His office in One Canada Tower, Canary Wharf, has panoramic views, from Norman Foster's 'gherkin' in the City to St Paul's Cathedral to the London Eye.
In Magazine Wharf, one of Freetown's largest slums, rivers of stinking mud and debris tumble from the central market, down a steep hill crammed with precarious wood- and tin-built dwellings.
