Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

I thought I might share with our esteemed community a picture of a colossal "tag"-style graffito that appeared on Sussex Gardens sometime on Friday night (2nd January), or possibly the night before. It is so huge and vile it displays utter contempt for civility and the urban environment. In the interests of fairness, some would say that it is a typical signifier of the urban environment and therefore quite the opposite.

Amusingly, the "artist" who authored it put the tag in inverted commas, either because they are deeply insecure about their purpose in life, or because they are labouring under some clichéd notion of postmodern irony and need to scare-quote everything they say. Either way, said graffito is a cretinous, cowardly act of vandalism against the Gardens community.

I have written to Haringey Council and received the encouraging response that "We will try to remove racist or obscene graffiti within 1 working day and all other graffiti within 3 working days."

Has anyone else had the good fortune to set eyes upon this exquisite work of art? Or perhaps our local artist has been gracing walls elsewhere in Harringay this weekend?

Tags for Forum Posts: graffiti, street art, sussex gardens

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Well, it's not as easy on the eye as the foxes, birds and squirrels that we are now used to.

thats really crap. Who ever did it is a complete _____ . I noticed a lot of broken beer bottles when I walked through there recently and sad to see the dumped xmas tree just around the corner from the tree recycling spot.

On a related note does anyone know why that shipping container is there? just in shot

In general, the council graffiti cleaning service is very prompt and good at what they do. There's been a couple of tagging incidents on the ladder recently too. As my tag reading skills are poor I couldn't say whether it's the same name. The police are often familiar with the variations though.

Great - I look forward to seeing it swiftly removed. My basic fear is the "broken windows" phenomenon, where one broken window leads to another very quickly, until the whole building is derelict. This tag could inspire a response from a rival tagger, rapidly descending into uncontrollable chaos - and this is the thing I want to avoid.

Yes, the other day I heard a racket and looked out to see someone (an independent contractor) using a steam cleaner to remove graffiti in two sections of the passage. It could only have been there 36 hours or so.

Let's hope the graffiti removal stays good and prompt as Barnet Haringey Council turns its back on the job of acting "like a big machine dispensing services".

I am of course quoting the curious words of Nick Walkley the current Chief Executive in his introduction on page 7 of the Corporate Plan.  Mr Walkley echoes the words and phraseology of the Dear Leader. Or perhaps it's the other way round?

I would suggest reporting increased problems with fly tipping to your St Ann's councillors and supplying them with photos of particular hotspots, as well as reporting to Veolia to get them cleared. They can also bring up problems with criminal damage like tagging at the police panel.

St Ann's Ward Councillors:

Barbara Blake - email: barbara.blake@haringey.gov.uk

Peter Morton - email: peter.morton@haringey.gov.uk

Ali Ozbek - email: ali.ozbek@haringey.gov.uk

Thanks for this, Liz. Fly tipping is a weekly occurrence, normally mattresses, rotting cupboards, TVs, sofas, armchairs, especially around the bits that connect the main streets in the Gardens (Devon Gardens and Essex Gardens in particular). To be fair, they get removed almost right away, so it must be a known problem and Veolia just visit regularly, knowing there'll be stuff needing to be picked up.

I doubt that Veolia just visit regularly, they won't collect anything that hasn't been reported and is on their job sheet. I expect it's being reported by locals (people like me  who report two or three incidents a week - better than when I was doing 2 or 3 a day).

Trouble is, of course, that the quicker rubbish is removed, the more people think its the 'easy' option for getting rid of stuff, although v often they can remove much of it with a phone call and save themselves of lugging it three streets away to dump it.

Your councillors should be kept informed of these things. They can involve enforcement etc and where households are struggling to comply they can be involved in solutions.

Yes, I've wondered about the container as well - it's been there for some time now. I think it appeared when the Gardens underwent improvements back in May (?) but for some reason it's still there. And there are occasional movements coming in and out.

I think it's actually related to the works on Green Lanes (the works in the Gardens finished a long time ago).

Presumably it'll go when the Green Lanes works are finished.... noticed there were still plenty of 'old style' cycle parking hoops around the Salisbury junction.

That shipping container was one of my landmarks for knowing how far down Green Lanes I would come out - it's disappeared in the last week or so.

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