Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Plans from Haringey to demolish houses to create parks for Harringay & Crouch End
Watching the 1974 film "What Future Haringey?" in the mobile cinema at the Harringay Festival yesterday, I was very surprised to learn of Seventies Council plans to demolish houses in Crouch End & Harringay and a third area to the north of the borough sufficient to create three local parks.
Based on an assessment of the proximity of a local parks to population centres in the borough, the plans never saw the light of day. Perhaps not surprising after the Wood Green town centre plans got so badly derailed. They were perhaps a bit crackpot to begin with.
Not that I'm in the least unsympathetic to the idea of a local park or communal space for Harringay. We're about the only area in the borough with no open space in our town centre; the precise reason we have a virtual Christmas tree this year rather than a real one.
Some of you may remember that back in 2008, I suggested carving out a little 'town centre park' from the corner of the old cricket pitch - not much; not enough to cut in to the space of the baseball teams based there; perhaps just a Hornsey Town Hall Square sized space.
Without this, there are no shared open spaces for the community to gather and be communal.
Perhaps I'll send a note up the chimney.........
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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You guys in the deep south - please feel free to use our Ducketts Common
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Permalink Reply by jack63kids on
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Hugh,
Is there a map of borough/parish boundaries on the group somewhere? I'm wracking my brains to think where they'd lie. Duckett's Common is too far north, but what about Chestnuts Park and the award winning Community Garden in the Gardens? Is anything made of the New River space these days too? I've not been 'home' for ages and do remember a lot of green space other than Finsbury Park.
I like your idea of a new entrance in Finsbury Park though and some community space. It doesn't feel like a Harringay space as it is.
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Attached.
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map_of_parks_and_open_spaces.doc, 332 KB
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Thanks Hugh - efficient as always. So Ducketts does count then and Railway Fields - though not great for community events that aren't involved with nature.
One in the top right of Harringay and one down at the bottom with no proper entrance doesn't really do it. Did your idea for the top right of Finsbury Park get met with any level of enthusiasm?
Jack
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I think for the Council filed it in the 'too difficult to deal with' pile. None of the local councillors seemed interested in taking up the cause. So it seems like it would need a focussed local champion with the time and energy to devote to it. We don't seem to have heaps of those round here.
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Harringay has more than it's share of activists with good ideas and energy - just that you're already out there doing stuff and saving the world. You should try to get any community event going around this backwater! Boy I miss Harringay!
You'd think it would be in the interests of the Arena Shopping Park to free up some space on their side or make a bridge to that corner of Finsbury Park. Nothing to bribe them with once they're in though. Andy and Karen have proved it doesn't have to take up much room to be a useful community space.
Jack
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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Hugh. Judging by the fine threads and dark glasses the said Haringey officer was sporting, I suspect that his planning colleagues soon saw though the fact he had eased into the 70's and had had too many Scooby snacks when he brought that plan up!
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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on
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I actually think the post WW2 Councillors were actually very visionary and those in Tottenham at least, really wanted to improve peoples lives with better housing conditions..
Hard to believe know, but most of the late victorian terraced housing stock had no bathroom and only an outside WC that was laible to freeze up in winter..
The architects and town planners of the 50s -70s all grew up pre WW2 and learnt ideals from men who been part of the 1920s push for 'airer and greener' living conditions. Social Hosuing was considered to be the best way to deliver that for the majority. A lot of mistakes were made that impacted later on society. But the ideals behind them were (IMO) correct.
Large areas of 'old' South Tottenham disappeared at this time.. and looking today at what replaced it - most seems to be measly badly designed housing stock (Although, the majority of today's privately financed housing stock isn't IMO any better). I also think that the communal spaces created in that period were generally very dour windswept areas with stick-like trees on mounds - yuk!
I recall thinking as a teenager with little 'life experience' that all those modern housing developments were wonderful and tried to catalogue some of the changes. BTW, I also imagined that 'model families' would live 'model lives' in 'model homes'.. but they all let me down - lol.
Still. I think the vision was a good thing and it certainly is preferable to the general cynicism that seems to pervade all sections of British society and HOL discussions today.. IMO, negativity never achieves anything!
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Not sure if you thought I was being negative Steve, I was attempting to being light humoured, in case it was missed. Maybe I should use the emoticons
. I lived in a two up two down pit terrace in a northern minning community, so I appreciate the sentiment that they were up for improvements....
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No Justin.. of course I didn't
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