Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Council Decides to Rename Black Boy Lane
Following my consideration on the origins of West Green's Black Boy name back in the summer, Haringey Council has decided to rename Black Boy Lane in West Green.
The Council have called the exercise a 'renaming consultation', but the online questionnaire offers only the ability to choose from a shortlist of two new names. So it appears that the decision to rename has already been taken with only the choice of name left to be decided.
They have issued the following press release.
The council has launched a renaming consultation with residents and businesses located on Black Boy Lane, as part of the wider Review on Monuments, Buildings, Place and Street Names in Haringey – which was launched on 12 June 2020, in response to the Black Lives Matter movement.
The council believes that the names of our monuments, buildings, places and streets must reflect the values and diversity that we are so proud of in the borough. One of the street names that has been identified as not being reflective of this is Black Boy Lane.
Meanings change over time, and the term “Black Boy” is now most commonly used as a derogatory name for African heritage men.
As part of the consultation, the council is asking residents to consider new alternative names that celebrate some of the borough’s most notable influencers, and truly reflect the borough’s rich heritage.
The two names that have been shortlisted for residents to consider are, ‘Jocelyn Barrow Lane’ and ‘La Rose Lane’. The consultation will launch today, Monday 28 September and will run for a period of 4 weeks to Monday 26 October 2020.
Letters will be arriving on Black Boy Lane residents' doorsteps this week, who can respond to the consultation using one of the following methods:
- Online: www.haringey.gov.uk/renaming-black-boy-lane.
- Email:
- bblconsultation@haringey.gov.uk
- Telephone: 020 8489 3797
- By post: Consultation Co-ordinator, The Communications Team, River Park House, 225 High Road, Wood Green, London, N22 8HQ
If Haringey residents have concerns or queries about place, street or building names in the borough, please get in touch. Send your views to Leader@haringey.gov.uk.
Bios:Dame Jocelyn Anita Barrow (15 April 1929 – 9 April 2020) was a Barbadian/Trinidadian British educator, community activist and politician, who was the Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. She was the first Black woman to be a governor of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and was founder and Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council.
John La Rose was a publisher, poet and essayist. He founded the Caribbean Artists’ Movement and publishing company New Beacon Books which has a bookshop in Stroud Green. In 1975, he co-founded the Black Parents Movement from the core of the parents involved in the George Padmore Supplementary School incident in which a young Black schoolboy was beaten up by the police outside his school in Haringey.
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Tags for Forum Posts: blackboy lane name change, review on monuments, building place and street names
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Old-Age-Emporium(OAE) on
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BLACK BOY LANE RUNS OUT OF NAMES AND STEAM ON PAGE 43 & DAY 71. NOT A WORD ABOUT IT FOR 20 HOURS. MY PEOPLE, YOU DISAPPOINT ME!
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I went down there today and I couldn't see the road signs. Has the Council already removed them?
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Permalink Reply by Anna on
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I’ll check the rest of the street signage when I have a minute. You might be right! I’ve passed it everyday for the past 15 years so it’s true that I haven’t properly looked at it.
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I'm staggered! I knew that the mad Momentum members running the Council were contemptuous of residents but this is beyond belief.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Momentum didn’t exist in 2008
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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From a quick look at Google Maps it appears there are - or used to be - three streetname signs. One at the northern end at the junction with West Green Road; a second sign at the corner of Clarence Road; and a third sign at the southern end of Black Boy Lane near the corner of St Ann's Road and close to the park railings.
If you regularly use Google Maps you probably know that it stores previous photos. You can access them by clicking on a small white triangle. I've done a screen grab and drawn a red arrow to show what I mean. You can enlarge these photos by clicking on them The screen grab shows 2018 when the streetname sign was missing! I spotted this because I used to catch the bus to Moorfields Eye clinic at St Ann's Hospital. I also emailed Haringey - you have to nag - and the nameplate was eventually replaced.
I didn't notice that the previous streetname sign near West Green Road appears to have vanished some time between 2008 and 2014. Again the screengrab below is from the old Google Street Maps photos. The wall where the sign used to be was then painted/sprayed over. First with an angry ugly black birds graffiti and then further daubed by tagging. (Yes, I do realise that there are people who find some or all of this "art" attractive.)
Anyway please let's not blame the idealistic young people in Momentum. Nor perhaps Joe Ejiofor and his hopeless cronies. Most of whom - but perhaps not all - seem to have jumped in Momentum because it looked like a magical beanstalk to high positions in the Labour Party.
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Thanks Alan. Much needed voice of reason ! I just took a pic of where the sign used to be (faint black lines) but I can’t swear when was the last time I saw it. So it’s probably fine! Will check when I have a minute.
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Thanks Anna,
Yep, Google Maps seems to suggest there may have been two streetname signs at the West Green Road junction. Maybe this is like urban archaeology - but sifting through recent debris. These two are from the misty days of 2008.
(Please click on the photos to see larger sizes.)
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