Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The Hell that is Wood Green
Yesterday, I had the misfortune to find myself in the shopping mall. Walking out the big automatic doors and into the crowd of Star Wars pub extras who were smoking, spitting and squabbling on the footpath I witnessed what for me sums up the whole carbuncle on the arse of Haringey that is Wood Green High Road. One of the characters stormed through the crowd with his status dog in tow. I was reflecting on the fact that ‘status’ dogs don't seem to work (as the people who have them only ever seem to be what everyone else in society would consider low status). Everything suddenly went quiet except the ever present sirens. The status dog had stopped and released its copious bowels all over the footpath. It was like turning on the light in an HMO; the cockroaches screamed and scattered. The dog owner laughed and walked on. It was probably one of the most disgusting things I have seen or smelt in London. Eventually the crowd returned and watched the next horde trample the mess up and down the road. There was no-one to turn to, no-one to clean up and more importantly no-one with the authority to challenge and/or shoot the dog owner. Things just returned to normal.
The whole experience made me think how the council, local police and traders believe that we're all animals if they are happy for us to have to deal with this every time we go to the High Road. It's easy enough for me to hop on a bus and head off to Crouch End or Islington or even Enfield to shop but if you're older or disabled and have trouble getting around or not enough money for the bus it must be pretty grim to face it every day. Imagine how the standard little old lady dreads heading out into the crowds, litter, phlegm, smoke and anti-social behaviour of Wood Green every morning to get the milk.
Short of manning water cannons at each end of the High Road and employing some mercenaries with batons to control the crowds, I don’t know what can be done. Are there any clever ‘nudges’ or interventions that could improve Wood Green? Is it a matter of tarting the place up and hoping that the crowds respect their new surroundings? Is it signage to remind, and in many instances educate, people that spitting, littering and barging into other people is just not the done thing? Or do we just give up, bulldoze the lot and install a waterhole in the middle and let the law of the jungle and the status dog owners prevail?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Pat on
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Your signature is a flashing neon sign of a party political broadcast. I have no problem with people providing a disclosure about political party affiliations at the end of their comment as it is clear signpost and mitigates accusations of conflicts of interest. Your signature takes the biscuit and has no place on a community forum. By the way I am not attached to any political party.
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Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
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I like the thought of killing weeds in a political manner:
- US- Tea Party Republican- Terminate, with extreme prejudice, anything that moves, preferably using smart insecticide to reduce collateral damage
- Tory- Well, if we kill the dandelions, we must also kill the daisies, so as to be as inclusive as possible
- Labour- I am not sure we should kill them, perhaps we should put some signs up and hope they will start to behave like ordinary garden plants
- Liberal- All for giving the weed a helping hand so as to become more loved (i.e., by relabelling as 'wild flowers')
- BNF- Well, the clue is in the title, its called 'Japanese' knot weed, so to should sod off back to where it came from
- UKIP- I agree with Nick (Griffin that is)
- Green- We cannot kill it...
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Mags, the political affiliation bit at the bottom of comments is required by the site's House Rules (m). Which stipulate as well that it should be on the member's page. As you suggest it's also about transparency and disclosure of interests.
Not always needed. E.g. recommending a restaurant. (Unless run by their family! )
(Tottenham Hale ward Labour councillor)
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Permalink Reply by Straw Cat on
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Gotta say, anyone who thinks Wood Green is hellish has probably never travelled to Edmonton
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Permalink Reply by L F T Snowflake on
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Yes, that contains all the extras who were thrown out of the Star Wars bar!
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Permalink Reply by Ted Arvizu on
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A lot of this conversation strikes me as classist, which is odd considering the forum and that most of the borough is rough-shod (The Ladder, Wood Green, Turnpike Lane, Woodside, Bruce Grove, Tottenham, etc.)
Would it be acceptable if I started a thread on Tottenham, describing it as a circle of Hell?? Why hasn't the moderator / owner stepped in and curtailed some of this vitriol?
Would the more negative commentators appreciate those in living in Highgate, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, FInchley etc. slamming all and sundry in your neighbourhood?
I've lived in Wood Green for five years and I do think it could do with a big clean up, but to paint all of us with same tar brush is not doing anyone any good. I moved here because I was thrilled to find an area I could afford to buy a whole house that is near a tube station. I'd had it with sharing my front door and living in a flat.
Even before I moved here I was warned that the high road was a bit mad and was told that a lot of the high road was shopped by folks coming in from Enfield, Edmonton, and Tottenham. I want the road upgraded, but when this is mentioned a lot of my neighbours freak - they want a place they can afford to shop where they feel comfortable. Those who don't want to see too much change at times see "new" people who are moving in, such as me and my partner as a negative force of gentrification.
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I think if you read the thread carefully, most of the "same tar brush" comments are actually being made by the don't-say-anything-bad-at-all-about-Wood Green side misrepresenting what others are saying in order to feel smugly aghast.
It's just good old strawman arguing - misinterpret (through lazyness, prejudice or malice) a reasonable point as something quite beyond the pale, then make a lot of noise objecting to something no one ever actually said, and respond to every attempt to clarify with louder and louder misconceptions, until it becomes impossible to discuss the original, valid point at all.
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Rubbish, the generalisations have come from both sides but the vitriol has been aimed at those that have been quick to generalise that shopping in Wood Green High Street is a constantly threatening environment due to the people that shop there (mention of gangs, hordes of antisocial people and HMO cockroaches). But please do use the strawman argument to lazily misinterpret the thread. The original point was a long rant that generalised one specific incident of antisocial behaviour and used inflammatory language, such as using batons and water cannons to 'control the crowds'. My counterpoint is that my experience of shopping in Wood Green High Street is not so different from Oxford Street in terms of pushy crowds, spitting, and littering, just in more salubrious surroundings.
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You make my point.
The majority of negative comments have been even handed and taken care to note that the issue is the lack of controls on the anti-social behaviour of the few, and how this degrades the experience for everyone.
The reason this thread seems to be about extreme views is because the small number of posts that expressed a more hyperbolic view are the ones that have been picked up on, degrading what could have been a valuable debate into "well, there are nice shops so you're all just snobs"
As to the first post, yes it's " a long rant that generalised one specific incident of antisocial behaviour" - but it's clear that for Osbawn, that "one specific incident" is summing up a whole history of previous experiences. Somehow I don't think Osbawn's point was "Wood Green has always been as close to Arcadia as it's possible to get on this Earth, up until yesterday when I saw something so awful it turned my whole view upside down"
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Have just returned from a trip there.
Outside Lidl, I watched about 25 women being fleeced by a team of fake perfume scammers. I did try and prevent one woman from handing over her £20.00 but she was having none of it. Later, when I was in Lidl I pointed out to her daughter she'd just been scammed. But she just laughed and triumphantly patted her little bag of water.
Earlier in front of Smiths, two lads (no older than 12) were busily extracting money from shoppers in exchange for a 'sponsored walk' using a not very convincing sponsorship form. And of course, across the road outside the library Holy Joe and his Angels were giving it large in the name of the Lord in the hope of drowning out the 'children of a lesser god' who were busily handing out leaflets aimed at selling THEIR god to the public.
And all the while, that familiar tune played out, da, da, da da da daaaa da!
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