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 LSquared on
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But towards specific behaviour, not towards "low status people", whatever that means.
Sharon, the next comment is not specifically aimed at you, it's an observation of something that has happened a lot on this thread
When someone takes that comment about behaviour and interprets it as being about particular social group, that tells us a lot about the way that they think - either that they hold that prejudice personally or that they hold other prejudices (eg about the "middle class") which leads them to incorrect assumptions about the opinions and motivations of others.
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Permalink Reply by Sharon on
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Read it again. It's a quote from the original comment which attaches observations of negative behaviour to 'low status' people. You'd have to ask Osbawn what it means or why for eg P. Foxe assumes that young upwardly mobile couples coming into the area are 'more articulate' than...I presume he meant 'low status people'
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My apologies, you are right. Osbawn did use the term low status in the original post, about the man with the status dog.
On close reading it was specifically about the "status" of people who choose to have "status" dogs. I don't think he/she meant to extend that label to everyone in Wood Green, or even to all the badly behaved of Wood Green.
I was wrong about who first used the term, but I stand by my point that no one has said the problem with Wood Green is "low status people" other than as an accusation leveled at others.
(I also don't agree with Osbawn on that particular point)
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I disagree, I think it has been strongly implied throughout the thread. No need to apologise though :-)
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Permalink Reply by Pat on
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The first line of the original comment compares the shoppers of Wood Green High Street as 'Star Wars extra....smoking, spitting and squabbling on the footpath'. How is that not a negative generalisation of the shoppers? How is 'the cockroaches screamed and scattered' not a negative description of the shoppers in general?
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I think People who are following this thread know how to use the site and don't need to read these comments twice especially on such a Glorious Bank Holiday. Wood Green Shopping Shitty is open today you know...
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Permalink Reply by Straw Cat on
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Four reasons to find the psychogeography of Wood Green Shopping City vaguely unsettling (Stephen King wrote a short horror story called "Crouch End" positing that around here the crust between the surface of civilization and Hell is particularly thin):
- A river (the Moselle) runs right across the site, buried under it. A railway used to cross it.
- According to the 20th Century Society: "The scheme’s history dates back to the 1965 creation of the Greater London Council, and the amalgamation of three north-London boroughs into the new Haringey. Wood Green was to be reinvented as a ‘Heart for Haringey’, one of a number of new suburban centres intended to counteract the magnetic pull of Central London. Many of the features of the sixties plan, such as a ‘minirail’ and the diversion of the A105 to make possible the semi-pedestrianisation of the high street, would become victim to the worsening economic climate. Nevertheless, the council held to the sixties vision with an unusual tenacity. When Shopping City was completed in the early eighties, it was one of the very last physical manifestations of the ambition towards a colossal scale that characterizes sixties urbanism."
- The council's supervising planning officer of this scheme, which was supposed to bring millions of profits to ratepayers through partnerships with large development partners, and ultimately cost them millions, was then appointed to supervise and design the rebuilding of Alexandra Palace. Exactly the same thing happened there (according to a council-commissioned report). He was effectively sacked.
- Above the Shopping City is a "village in the sky" complete with central space. I've lived here for 30 years and have never seen this. From the Guardian: On 25 January 2006, officials from a north London housing association repossessing a bedsit in Wood Green [above the Shopping City] owing to rent arrears made a grim discovery. Lying on the sofa was the skeleton of a 38-year-old woman who had been dead for almost three years. In a corner of the room the television set was still on, tuned to BBC1, and a small pile of unopened Christmas presents lay on the floor. Washing up was heaped in the kitchen sink and a mountain of post lay behind the front door. Food in the refrigerator was marked with 2003 expiry dates. The dead woman's body was so badly decomposed it could only be identified by comparing dental records with an old holiday photograph of her smiling. Her name was revealed to be Joyce Carol Vincent.
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Permalink Reply by GillianM on
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This is a brilliant film about the case of Joyce - available on 4od I think.
http://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/dec/15/dreams-of-a-life-film-r...
The review makes some comments on the lack of community in the area which I would copy and paste if I wasn't on my phone!
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Permalink Reply by SarahC on
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Well, it does flow gently through Lordship Rec, which is also Haringey.
What's the problem with the railway line, though? I live in a block of flats built on the same former railway line. Am I closer to hell by doing so?
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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THIS history is helpful and interesting Straw Cat.
It puts "regeneration" within the Borough into a longer-run, historical perspective. Some of the chronic difficulties seem to stem from the forced amalgamation of three Boroughs into a single entity in 1965. From that point forward, for some reason, ambition seemed to vault ahead of ability.
I note the further evidence of a common thread between the Shopping City and the rebuilding of AP after the 1980 fire. In today's money, both were multi-ten-million pound projects.
The wonderful-sounding Village in the Sky could have appeared in a forerunner of Haringey People magazine. Such vision would now be said to 'secure the future'.
Our best guide to the future is the past. The ingredients are in place. Now its time for Tottenham's turn for regeneration (via Cannes).
Disclosure:
am a prospective councillor candidate
Highgate Ward | Liberal Democrat Party
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Permalink Reply by Cllr Emina Ibrahim on
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Hi Strawcat
The river Moselle was culverted way before the shopping city and the village in the sky, Sky City is the estate you are referring to. The river was in fact culverted during the construction of the Noel Park Estate in the early 1900's I believe. I have been inside and seen Sky City and its not uncommon to have housing complexes above shopping areas we can see it with Watney Market in Tower Hamlets. I think it represents a particular idea of Town planning that now looks dated but was very much of its time.
Clive - I am unsure how long you have lived in Haringey so won't make assumptions however I grew up in Wood Green came here when I was very young and I find your incessant desire to unconstructively do my home down rather disappointing considering you are standing to become a councillor. I think that young people in the borough are sick and tired of hearing this negativity about their home and it's really demoralising. I think the common thread going through this discussion is however a genuine desire for people to see respect from others for the environment and shared spaces. This cuts across class and mutual respect comes from fostering understanding of basic things we expect from each other. What people in Haringey (whether it's Wood Green or Harringay) want is a sense of pride in their community and a civic identity which isn't about what an awful place it is. My parents moved to Charlton from Frobisher Rd the year I was born and in the early 80's I remember the National Front marches. My mum would make sure me and my sister were not playing out when they were on our estate recruiting and canvassing. When we came back here first to Finsbury Park and then Wood Green - to be honest me and my older sister thought we had arrived in utopia not hell! and that was with the backdrop of the Broadwater farm riots. Of course we were kids and naive but there really is great things about the area. I don't think anyone could have described the real spirit of the area better than Liz did.
Emine
Labour Party Candidate (Harringay Ward)!
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