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 Takaokagiejin on
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But it's ok to complain about the people in Crouch End?
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Permalink Reply by Liz on
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Nope. I said earlier I wasn't going to go down that road. All places have their merits and their drawbacks. I jest about buggies and dress sense (although not about Monkey Nuts-ditto Giraffe anywhere). I really, really couldn't care less about either having been a pram wielder myself and I'm probably not someone with the best dress sense.
But the way people in Wood Green are being spoken about on this thread is not a joke. Talk of water cannon and batons given what happened there is 2011 is not really very funny at all. Nor is bulldozing people's homes. Way too much of that going on in London as it is. And those people are not being given a chance to come back. I'm guessing if the homes of people in Wood Green were bulldozed and those people driven out, there are few of the complainers on this thread that would care. But I would. And I think you would too.
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TBD. I don't own the site. Ning does. I admin it. But I'm not doing that now. I am joining the debate. Is it really necessary to refer to people in such unpleasant tones? Or to dismiss objections to that tone as "political correctness"? I know quite a few people who live in Wood Green. This thread has upset them. They have contacted me to tell me so. They find the language and suggestions so objectionable that they can't even bring themselves to join the "discussion". So I'm standing up for them and also for Wood Green itself which I can see the value of even if you can't.
Reminds me of when you lost it over a joke about the BNP which you continue to reference. One person's thoughtless quip is another's person's offended sensibilities. I was in that room and I wasn't offended. It was a bad joke not intended to wound.
These comments about "shitheads" (which personally I don't see in great numbers and I am in Wood Green several times a week) are not bad jokes. And the people reading them in Wood Green don't think so either. Since this is a PUBLIC forum as you are at pains to point out, believe me they are reading them. And judging the people writing them.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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To be picky: the use of water cannon is not authorised on mainland Britain. Some police chiefs have suggested they should be but an Act of Parliament would be needed.
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Permalink Reply by Jamie To on
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Ask Haringey Council! They will know TBD, they are most likely to be paying their rent so that these idiots to live in the area. No other borough wants them. Enfield don't want them, nor do Hackney and other boroughs so they pass them to Haringey.
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Remind me where it has been suggested that people from Crouch End should have their homes bulldozed (Shopping City has people living above it) or that the people getting their daily shopping should be controlled with batons and water cannon. Hardly on a par to a couple of jokes about poor behaviour in restaurants and overpriced food and drink.
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Permalink Reply by KP on
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Well if the people from Crouch End were the same types who allowed their kids to urinate in the middle of a shop or their dogs to sh*t all over a street and not clear it up we'd be advocating bulldozing Crouch End too. But as that doesn't tend to be the average experience of a day out in Crouch End we don't need to. Sorry if you feel insulted by these comments but clearly a lot of us feel that Wood Green is letting Haringey down and improvements need to be made.
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I'm amazed at how many people want to bulldoze places they don't live in while negotiating the dog shit and the overflowing wheelie bins in their own neighbourhood.
If the criteria for flattening people's homes is bad dog ownership and a bit of 'hanging about being a pain in the arse', I guess my street is next for the wrecking ball.
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I'd be the first to say that Harringay is no paradise. There is plenty of room for improvement round here. I would be all in favour of a big hose down - even if it involved water canon!
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Permalink Reply by Lauren on
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I think 'bulldoze' was meant tongue in cheek / metaphorically. Nobody actually wants to bulldoze people's homes while they lie in their beds at night.
People who live in Wood Green are getting offended by people saying it's a hellhole, but that doesn't mean it isn't to some extent true. It's nothing personal, it is just fact. I live in Harringay again now, which is also a bit of a hellhole to some people, but I don't take it personally when people express that view because I know it is also true. (There were 'hellhole' aspects of all the places I have lived in in London, I would say Crouch End was the worst, for reasons I'm not going into on here).
I have lived in many places in north London, including Tottenham, Harringay, Palmers Green, Southgate, Muswell Hill, Wood Green, Crouch End, Stroud Green, Islingon, and now Harringay again, so I suppose you can say that Wood Green has been my main 'Town Centre' for the best part of twenty years. However I avoid it like the plague because the shops are rubbish and there is a serious air of dodginess and despair/bleakness about the place. Why put yourself through that experience if you don't have to, or don't get any advantage out of it?
I can understand that people want to believe it is not so bad, because they have invested in homes and a life here, but lets not kid ourselves because if any one of us won the lottery tomorrow we would all move.
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