When gentrification is a human rights issue

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Permalink Reply by kotkas on June 13, 2019 at 18:43

Nonsense. CPOs are a fact of life and are just as likely to affect a cultural enclave like the Latin market as someone living on the proposed new Heathrow runway. It’s entirely within the economic and social rights of a trader to set up a stall where feasible. What makes this community any more vulnerable? 

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Permalink Reply by JJ B on June 14, 2019 at 13:19

Do not belive the Grainger hype though.

It is true that things change. It is the only permannet thing in life innit?

Spitalfields Market is just not the same since it was 'corporatised' though. The say they maintained space for traders but it just ain't the same and you certainly can't find the same traders operating out of there as you did before. They were forced to move on.

So the Grainger claims to seek to preserve the market are spurious nonsense.

This whole Seven Sisters regenration schemevwas really badly thought through. The insipid nowherian architecture of the replacement building is just so horrible. The so-called gains that outweigh the negatives are a load of bo!!o*ks. The new builidng will bring a depressing cold urban setting of the most oppressive sort.

Just pay a visit to the area just outside Edmonton OG station to see how lovely regeneration can be.

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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on June 15, 2019 at 1:16

Thanks for the Edmonton Green link JJ B.

I haven't been to Edmonton Green for at least 35 years, but knew instinctively that that was junction of the long gone New Road over the railway. You must know that area well, so I've added a couple of shots.

I was seven in 1961 and this is how I remember that location, before the Shopping centre and towers were built in the 1970s.  Your gentrified tall building stands where the building and roadway with the Granada Edmonton was. Only T'buses & Buses that terminated at Edmonton went to the Green. Those on the main road to Waltham Cross went over the railway bridge. There is also a nerdy reason why this bus is doing that movement.. But explaining that would completely OT.

Looking in the opposite direction, a 659 (these days 259) swings over to the New Road bridge towards Waltham Cross. The church site in the background is part of the car park now.

The original railway line to Enfield Town had originated from the Lea Valley (Tottenham Hale) line. The line via Seven Sisters was built later, opening in 1870. The level crossing at Edmonton Green had made a bridge over that railway necessary for the trams and later T'buses on their way to Waltham Cross. The railway was closed in the 1960s and its closing was the germ that created the redevelopment of the whole Edmonton Green area.

This all has nothing to do with gentrification, so I'll end it there.

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Permalink Reply by JJ B on June 15, 2019 at 9:57

Thanks SBln,

In fact I do not know the area that well as I moved to Tottenham in 2009 only.

When I was more actively involved in the Wards Corner war, I did go around London photographing the clone low rise 'landmark' buildings that are being proposed in regeneration schemes. We won some battles but the council and Grainger used subterfuge to conclude that the gains from destroying parts of a neglected conservation area, with some lovely but modest architecture, and extremely rich in its community activities and life, would outweigh any damage done by their ill thought out plans.

What they have and are continuing to proclaim, is that by builiding these sorts of buildings they achieve 'regeneration'. Of course that is just a lie and only really poorly disguised property development.

The real problem is that the schemes not only destroy communities and livelihoods of those who should most benefit from them, expelling them to the periphery. They are just so, so mediocre in terms of urban planning and design.

See here for more examples of clone buildings....Aren't they just beautiful examples of successful urban design, lifting the neighbourhoods in which they have been plonked? One of the images shows how a different approach can both protect the architectural heritage AND integrate hyper-modern architecture into a scheme. So much depends on how the values and interests of the politicians/deciders driving the programme!

There is still time for Grainger to abandon the carbuncle scheme they plan and to revise it so that the existing High Rd and West Green Rd frontages can be integrated into a more sensitive scheme that will make Wards Corner an attractive place that people could admire.

Are they bold enough to relent and say they made an error?

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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on June 15, 2019 at 10:30

Thanks for that. I've sent you a FlickrMail.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on June 15, 2019 at 12:27

This 90's attempt to integrate the old with the new is on Jermyn Street. I used to walk past ths on the way to work and was always glad they'd preserved the older bit of building. I'm not sure, but it might be the back of the Criterion building - the preservation of whose interior golden splendour under plaster was apparently accidental.

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Permalink Reply by StephenBln on June 15, 2019 at 12:51

I personally think that is the big mistake and is exactly what gives (for visitors to) the U.K. the feel of one big nostalgia park, with its fake 'olde worlde' lamp posts (with nasty LED fixtures), dreadful Weatherspoon's, litter bins, telephone boxes etc. even down to retro-looking so-called boris buses.. ughhh.

I'd prefer stuff built in the 2010s to generally look like it. Imagine if the Edwardians had only built tudor style buildings everywhere and yes, I am aware that the Victorians had a penchant for tudor, but generally, most of everything they built was modern for the time and Harringay is mostly late-Victorian, Edwardian buildings.

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Permalink Reply by Hugh on June 15, 2019 at 13:05

I agree. I'm not generally a supported of rebuilding in an older style. I'd much rather see good new architecture. This is a pretty dull and uninspiring effort right in the heart of the West End. Something quite bold could have been done, with this face of the building at least. 

I hadn't intended to praise the whole building. My only focus was the tiny two-story element, just to the right of the arched entrance. If that could have been incorporated into some bold new architecture, so much the better (though having said that I'm not sure that the 90's is have been the best time for good new architecture in London). 

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