Review of the Year 2012

Here's a review of some of the highlights as seen from HoL Towers. No doubt I’ve missed as much as I've captured, but I hope that these few peaks and troughs offer one perspective at least of Harringay’s 2012. Please feel to fill in the gaps with a comment or two.

Harringay's Olympics Year

Olympic Torch handover on Turnpike Lane                                   Photo: Toby Manley

It seems only fitting to start any review of 2012 with a mention of the never to be forgotten 2012 Olympics. Whilst many of us began 2012 'Olympi-cynics', many more of us finished the summer as Olmypics fans who had laughed, cheered and maybe even cried through a few great weeks of sport.

Harringay didn't make it as an Olympic venue as we did in 1948, but we were at least just about involved in some of the activity and close to much of it.

The Olympic torch skirted right along our boundaries when it came down Turnpike Lane as part of the Olympic torch relay. And just a little way away in Ally Pally, Daley Thompson lit the Olympic Flame in the company of Harringay (St Ann's) councillor, David Brown (Mayor of Haringey).

Daley Thompson clowned around as he lit the torch at Ally Pally                                                                       Photo: Hugh Flouch

Our Olympic summer continued with the Dutch team and their supporters partying at "Heineken House"  based up at Ally Pally. We nearly hosted Jamaica Village based in Finsbury Park, but sadly something went awry with the organisation and that was not to be. (Perhaps by way of compensation, however, we did have a bouncy Stonehenge up at Ally Pally!).

'State of the Neighbourhood'

Whilst Olympic fever grabbed much of our attention for part of the year, our local world continued to to turn. 

Right in the heart of our neighbourhood, news continued to trickle out about the improvement works due in Harringay during 2013.

Proposed improvements on Green Lanes include beacon lighting to The Salisbury's crown

A first visible sign of the works to come was the hanging of a new, if temporary, banner on Harringay Bridge. Whilst many who drive under it probably don't understand the design, the banner is a proud display of some of the features of Harringay's history.

The new Harringay Bridge banner: from the ice age to today

Even as the improvements were being planned, 2012 also brought a number of challenges which threaten our neighbourhood's well-being. 

In the middle of the year came the news that estate agents Kinleigh Folkard Hayward were to assign the lease of the offices opposite the Salisbury to a new betting shop chain.

 Part of HoL's campaign to grab KFH's attention                                                                        Image: Hugh Flouch

After a campaign started by HoL and directed at KFH, many of us were grateful to the company for suspending the assignment of the lease pending finding another solution, (but we should remember that the solution has still yet to be found). As an added bonus, we thought we were going to be able to use the offices as a pop-up space in the run up to Christmas, but alas, landlords Paul Simon Seaton were unwilling to make that happen.

The huge unused space in the Coliseum building opposite The Salisbury

Elsewhere in the neighbourhood, over on the eastern fringe, we heard more about the early plans for the development of the St Ann's Hospital site.

New housing planned for St Ann's Hospital

The changes will see about half of the site retained for use as a hospital and half going for mixed private-public housing. The consultation process will continue through 2013.

In what was to many a surprising announcement, The Gardens area was awarded £350,000 to address its traffic issue and will see work start next year. The community celebrated with an Autumn street party which included grassing over the streets.

Some of the roads in The Gardens were turfed for the day for a local celebration                                            Photo: Hugh Flouch

Against the backdrop of the major changes, some minor issues bubbled through the year.

Many locals were saddened at the loss of so many trees culled by the Council due to disease.

Over 40 trees were removed from the Ladder Roads 
Photo: Anthony Elder 

But, one particular stump at least gave a determined resident an opportunity to brighten up his street, as hard as some others tried to destroy his efforts.

Great use for a tree stump on Frobisher Road                                                                                            Photos: Anthony Elder 

One issue that refused to go away through the year - along with the smells that accompanied it - was the fallout of the new rubbish collection arrangements.

Overflowing bins have been a source of constant  
complaint                                     Photo by Helen

The potent mix of 'bin blight' and missed collections has probably occupied more HoL pixels this year than any other issue. 

On Our High Street

Harringay's high street continued to develop as a destination centre attracting shoppers from around London and beyond. The smartening up of the street was generally welcomed but nonetheless exhibited a reliance on the trade of non-residents which did little to expand the choice for residents. This trend also probably explains the traders' persistent campaign to reduce parking charges for shoppers that ended the year with some free parking vouchers.

We saw a much smarter new Hala emerge (though thank goodness the gözleme ladies in the window survived!)

Hala smarted up at the start of the year                        Photo: Hugh Flouch

Following last year's new supersized Gökyüzü and Devran, 2012 saw Selale doubling in size.

A smart new Selale for 2012                                                                                                     Photo: Hugh Flouch

We also heard about plans for still more supersized Turkish restaurants in 2013.

Beyond the restaurants, we saw a second Hot Nuts opening further north along Green Lanes and yet another Baklava shop nearby. ADA Technology also migrated north and opened a new store in Grand Parade, leaving it's former premises to be occupied by a new perfume shop. Two Turkish Cafe/Bars opened towards the end of the year, one half way long Green Lanes and one opposite McDonalds. Further north Doğtaş furniture store opened in the former Queens Head 

We also had some non-Turkish openings. Just down from the old Queens Head, Svetlana and Giorgi opened the Delicious Katmi Pancake restaurant.

Giorgi and Svetlana opened Delicious Katmi Pancake Restaurant           Photo: Hugh Flouch

In the Spring a new polish shop opened opposite McDonalds and Poundland opened in the Arena. Opposite Finsbury Park, Borboni closed and the short-lived Cafe Poppins opened in its stead. We've recently heard that this turnstile premises has now opened as a new Asian Store. And, just squeezing in an opening before the year's end is Crepanini a new Bulgarian Crepe and Pancake cafe right next door to The Salisbury.

Away from 'the strip', La Viña Tapas restaurant on Wightman Road opened its new terrace and Moka had a couple of refurbishments, and started wine nights and Thursday late night opening. Up in Wood Green the excellent South and North Oriental Store opened, serving wonderful fresh seafood and other Asian goodies. And, over in West Green, community cafe Filling the Gap started up and is still going strong.

As for goodbyes, we had the never quite opened new music bar (a shame that one) and we heard about the loss of our two Post office sorting offices which some fear will mean it becoming much more difficult to collect our undelivered post and parcels.

Both Harringay Sorting Office (in the Arena Shopping Park) and the Hornsey office are slated for closure

We also said goodbye to Muna's and to the Food Cycle Cafe in Stroud Green. For a while Cem and Irfan at Cafe Lemon also said goodbye to most of their shop sign.

In Our Parks

2012 in our parks seemed to tell the story of many public services in Britain at this point in time. We saw some deterioration in their maintenance with litter a particular problem in Finsbury Park. We also saw the Council taking steps to find new sources of funding with the planned transfer of Finsbury Park's Athletics facilities to a consortium of sports clubs and a possible permanent concert licence for the park. As elsewhere with public services, we've also seen local people stepping in to the breach.

New Facilities on Duckett's Common funded by Sport England, the Mayor of London and the Big Lottery Fund

We had a resident organised big tidy up in Fairland Park and a resident group securing funding for new recreational facilities on Duckett's Common.

In Our Schools

With pressure for good school places growing, we heard quite a bit this year of parents concerns about getting children in to their school of choice, but by the Autumn we heard that almost 80% of parents were given a first choice place, almost 90% given a top three choice.

Parents of older children shared their views on local secondary schools and Park View Head Teacher Alex Atherton became a regular contributor to HoL.

Keeping the younger children happy, South Harringay welcomed a new play pen to liven up play time. 

New play pod at South Harringay School                                                                                                                 Photo: Liz Ixer

The Community Playing its Part

Throughout 2012, local people showed their community muscle in all sorts of ways.

In Spring, The Gardens Community Garden received the latest in a long line of awards.

More plaudits for the Gardens Community Garden

By the Summer, Harringay had another community focus with the opening of Harringay's new market (Pulling together links for this post, I found an old post from  January 2009 musing about a Harringay market which was then only a dream).

Tasty food on offer at Harringay Market
Photo: Hugh Flouch

Just a week later we had Harringay's first Open Gardens event organised by Alison Park.

One of the gardens opened to locals in early July                                 Photo: Dick Harris

September saw the first of the Harringay Cashmobs with the BBC in attendance for live coverage.

A crowd of about seventy turned up at Harringay's first cashmob to support Harringay Market                                Photo: Nigel Lupton

In Autumn Fairland Park hosted the Big Draw when kids and parents gathered in the warm October sunshine to draw, doodle, cut and stick pictures of their families and their favourite places in Harringay.

Leaves for the Fairland Family Tree tied onto a tree                                 Photo: Liz Ixer

In the same month a group of locals got together on Harringay Online to bid for - and win - an 1885 plan showing the development of our neighbourhood as a suburb. Copies were taken for bidders and the original passed on to a local museum.

After being copied the map was gifted to Bruce Castle Museum             Photo: Hugh Flouch

In December, Anthony Elder organised a Christmas Lantern Procession. All the lanterns used were made at Lantern making workshops during the week prior to the event. For the procession itself, one group made their way from The Gardens, another from the Ladder. They met outside The Salisbury to see the illumination of Harringay's first real Christmas tree for many years.

Upwards of 500 people joined the two lantern processions which met outside The Salisbury   Photo: Adam Coffman

In Other News

2012 seemed to be the year for Street Art in and aroud Harringay. After the discovery of a Banksy in nearby Whymark Avenue and the Shepard Fairey just behind Turnpike Lane, we had a whole host of lesser pieces popping up around the hood.

House prices in Harringay kept climbing with £600,000+ apparently becoming the norm for a typical Ladder house. One house even edged towards £900,000.

One riverside Ladder property edged prices closer to the seven figure mark

October saw a Victorian Council storage facility on Wightman Road destroyed in raging fire. 

Wightman Road was closed as fire engines fought the blazing fire in Wightman Road     Photo: Laura Dillingham

And the previous month witnessed the printing of the the last Hornsey Journal after more than 130 years.

About Harringay

In August Harringay hit the headlines as new Ladder resident, David Sexton (Literary editor for the Evening Standard), wrote up Harringay in the Evening Standard.

The year started with goof news as Google finally caved in to my constant attention and put Harringay on the map AND in the right place.

However, even 100 years has been insufficient to get the Council to recognise Harringay. In the early 20th Century, Hornsey Council tried insisting that our neighbourhood's name was Haringey, but the locals wouldn't allow it. Today the Council won't allow the official use of Harringay anywhere on Council documents and insists on using the invented 'Green Lanes' or 'Harringay Green Lanes'. I put it to the test this summer and asked the man on the street what they thought our neighbourhood is called (See the linked post for an explanation of the title!) .

The exercise showed that the majority of people refer to our neighbourhood as Harringay

Harringay Online's 2012

As for HoL itself, we had a busier year then ever before. In 2012 there were:

• 3,813 forum discussions posted
• 443 photos posted
• 14 stand alone videos posted and many more embedded in forum posts.
• 1,205 events added
• 1,310 new members.

The number of visits and visitor numbers to the site doubled compared to 2011:

• Visits rose from 280,840 to 518,093
• Unique visitors in the year were up from 83,387 to 178,457
• Pageviews jumped from 1,317,661 to 2,036,973.

We haven't counted how many:

• questions were answered / problems were resolved / advice was given,
• goods were given away or recycled,
• goods were sold,
• local tradespeople were recommended,
• new neighbours met, including through groups set up through HoL like the Local Business Group, Cat Sitters, Salisbury Knitters, Open Gardens, HoL Socials and so on,

but we know that in most cases the number is in the hundreds.

Also in 2012, having been anonymously nominated, HoL was an award finalist in the Technology for Good Awards an we reached our 5th Birthday which we celebrated with a party down at The Salisbury.

Thanks to HoL member Anna for a splendid a birthday cake! 

Our habit of being mentioned in unlikely places around the world continued in 2012 with a mention in the Sydney Morning  Herald. From the USA, the world's largest museum and research complex, the Smithsonian Institute came to us to ask permission to use a couple of items from our historical archive for one of their 2013 exhibitions. Then just before Christmas The Guardian picked up on one of my history articles and began a hunt for the world biggest piano, originally made in Harringay.

So that was the year, that was. What did I miss?