“Londoners clearly prefer streets…”
After my post about visiting Dennis Severs’ house in Spitalfields, and hearing from the man responsible for its upkeep about how the surrounding area has changed beyond recognition, my ears are pricked up for stories about development of other old bits of London. Facebook is full of pages about places I love – Royal Vauxhall Taverna, I’m talking about you, hon – being bought and threatened with development. That, and The Joiners’ Arms, another long-established LGBT venue in Shoreditch, are both the subject of bids to list them as ‘community assets’, in the hope that they can be saved. Good luck. Madam JoJo’s has shut, as Soho cleans up. And now it’s London’s own Tin Pan Alley.
Image: Evening Standard
I don’t care much for Denmark Street per-se. I’ve seen a friend play at the about-to-close Twelve Bar club, but to be honest the ‘this is the actual guitar that Ray Davis hit his brother with’* brigade never interested me that much. But I read a comment piece in the Evening Standard last night with interest (not often I can say that). Simon Jenkins was writing about the street being surrounded by the new Crossrail station on Tottenham Court Road, and the high-rise buildings and windy, empty plazas of St Giles Circus. He makes interesting points about London becoming just pockets of preserved historic sites, menaced on all sides by new buildings created on an in-human scale. But best of all he points out that “Londoners and visitors alike clearly prefer streets.” Amen. When one goes to Barcelona or Paris or Manhattan even, it is the old streets, just a few stories tall, that one wants to wander through. Spaces where you feel more like a munchkin than an ant. At the risk of sounding like Prince Charles (again), I’d hate to see London loose many more of it’s wonky, grubby, human-friendly thoroughfares.
I agree, but the most amazing thing about Tokyo was the old/new, tiny/massive right up next to each other. You can turn off Shibuya (which makes Picadilly Circus look like the village green) and be in a tiny alley with old wooden buildings and tiny bars with only 3 seats.
I was evicted from the most beautiful mansion block in Brixton a few months ago, it’s sitting there empty having displaced 16 households – tragic.
Thanks for your comment – that’s true. My brother lives in Tokyo and the alleys full of tiny bars in the centre are charming – but they really are all that is left of that old style of building. We wrote about it years ago on the blog! Would hate to see London left with just fragments of old streets that way. I’ve just been over to read about you leaving your place in Brixton, which I am also familiar with. SO sorry – not to mention disgusted – to hear about it. x