On being right.

As you'll know if you've asked me for directions I can be all kinds of wrong (ill-advised, misguided, ill-informed, wrong in detail, wrong in general, wrong in principle, wrong in practice) but every now and then I'm right.  For example, I'm right in thinking that the Andover estate's street-level garages are a lousy use of space. They're ugly, make the streets fell less safe, and attract fly-tippers.

So this made me happy:

Wesley Close.

Garages on the left, garages turned ino flats on the right. 

Close-up

Living in the chapel

Around the turn of the last century there were Methodists everywhere on the Hornsey Road. The Spiritualist church, the police station and this blue building on Bavaria Road all used to be chapels.

Not a chapel, December 2012.

The blue building got turned into flats and the top flat went on sale with The Modern House last month. It sold quickly. Shame, because I wish I could live there.

A

B

C

'The apartment was the subject of an award-winning conversion by West Architecture in 2006, and would be ideal for use by an artist or a designer.The project was given a Wood Award in 2006, with the judges commenting: “The delicacy of the structure and the contrast of the steel and timber make this project a delight.” It was also shortlisted for the AJ Small Projects Award, and featured in the book Detail in Contemporary Kitchen Design by Virginia McLeod.'

I keep on thinking about Methodists and Hanley Arms arms patrons glaring at each other and how in the end both sides lost.

Secret Garden in the Six Acres.

Came across this the other day. 

'2 January 2012 - 1 January 2015: Sans façon have been selected to create a new, artist-led garden design for the Six Acres Housing Estate in Finsbury Park, Islington.  Working in close collaboration with local residents and the estate’s landscape architects, they will be developing creative interventions for the site to enhance the central plaza of the estate and achieve a functional, successful social space'

Questions: 

A) Who are Sans façon? 

'It began as an investigation between French architect Charles Blanc and British artist Tristan Surtees, and has developed into an ongoing collaboration through an art practice. They undertake diverse projects, both temporary and permanent, predominantly exploring the complex relationship between people and place. They see the role of the artist and art as a catalyst in a process of raising questions and inviting people to look and think differently about a place, hoping to create an opportunity rather than an inanimate object.' 

They do interesting things. I approve of anyone who titles a piece 'Collaboration as a place you don't expect'.

B) Where is the Six Acres' central square? I still don't understand the geography there. 

C) Who's Dickon, who's Mary and who's Colin?

Changing the Six Acres.

I walked round the Six Acres the other day looking at the new buildings going up all over the estate:

A building

They look fine, I think. There's something 1930s about them (like an English take on the Gernsback continuum) and they don't have the cramped feel of a lot of new-builds.

There's a complicated conversation to be had about why we don't build enough houses in the UK and what can be done. I'll leave that be for the moment, though I'd be curious to know what you think about it.  There's a more local conversation about whether these particular buildings work for the Six Acres and again I'd love to hear what you think, especially if you live on the estate.

My (superficial) first impression is that they might make the Six Acres more welcoming.  The estate isn't frightening - the people in it are no better and no worse than the fancy lot in Crouch End and the closest I've come to violence there is when this kitten launched itself on me and insisted on having its head rubbed:

Very fierce.

But I do tend to avoid walking through it, whereas I'll take a detour to walk through the Andover, especially in spring or in autumn when the trees are in flower or turning red-gold.

There's this thing that happens in cities when spaces don't work. It can happen in a business district as much as in a suburb, in a rich area as much as a poor one. It's hard to describe but the coherence goes and it's like reading a book and finding that some pages have fallen out. You look around and you're not sure whether that road ahead is a dead end, whether that square is private. You get the impression that outsiders don't turn up often and perhaps aren't entirely welcome. If you're in a hurry, or (like me) you get lost easily you'll probably turn back and head for somewhere where your feet and your eyes know what to expect and how to read it.

The Six Acres seems like that, perhaps because when they obliterated Campbell Road they wanted to make something as different as possible to Victorian streets.

Tell me if you agree, or not. 

The Ujima court curse

Ujima court lies just north of Hornsey Road. Three stories, stucco and brick stripes, stepped roof, it looks normal but its windows have been gradually being bricked up for months and now the main entrance is boarded up too.

It turns out to be a morality tale.  There were 38 flats and bedsits crammed in there and none were big enough for people to live in them decently. Now the building's being closed down as people leave and something better will go up in its place.

Here's the story told by the council:

'Ujima Court is owned by London and Quadrant (L & Q) Housing Association.
At present it contains 23 flats and 15 shared bedsits - all of which are
undersized and not considered to be suitable living accommodation. Over
the past two years, Islington Council has been working with London and
Quadrant on plans to redevelop this site which will involve the
demolition of the existing building. During this time L & Q have also
been working with residents to find them suitable alternative
accommodation, which is why the building is predominantly empty now. 

L & Q submitted a planning application in 2011 for the following:
Demolition of 23 flats and 15 shared bedsits and associated outbuildings
and redevelopment of the site to provide 28 new flats and maisonettes (1
x 1 bedroom flat, 17 x 2 bedroom flats, 2 x 3 bedroom flats, 8 x 3
bedroom maisonettes) new external works and landscaping, including three
disabled parking bays, cycle parking (28 spaces) and refuse storage. 

All of the 28 new housing units on this site with be for affordable
housing; either Social Rented or Shared Ownership - it is a 100%
affordable housing scheme. '

Meanwhile someone (an ex tenant?) has written this in chalk on the paving stones: 'Oh yeah, whoever trashed all my stuff fuck you sad cunt. Now you're cursed: bad luck; cancer growing, growing, growing.'

Oyez! Oyez!

271-3 Hornsey Road (the old Jubilee Hall where Snook Machines were made) had been vexing me for months.

271-3 Hornsey Road

This is why:

I couldn't explain that town crier sign.

Then the clouds broke (i.e. some scaffolding came down) and revealed another sign done in the same style and colours:

'Town Crier' is a play on 'T. C. Timber'. Don't suppose anyone remembers them?

Looking less like Detroit every day

I found this architect's proposal the other day:  ' Hornsey Road: A mixed-use development for the owners of a light industrial building in North London, this proposal retains the existing commercial uses to provide a platform for eighteen new apartments, arranged around an open rooftop courtyard.'

It came with pictures. They weren't informative. Look! There's a person about to climb some stairs. Plus, shrubs. Shrubs are important.*

I think the building it'll replace is this:

'Steam Joinery Works'

Maps from 1873 to at least the 1950s show a 'Steam Joinery Works' there. What, exactly, is a steam joinery?

Yeah, it's been abandoned for a while.

I wonder how playing in the shadow of that will shape the local kids.  Will they find post-apocalyse sci fi comforting, or wrap themselves in florals and worry about slugs, or dream about Detroit?

I like derelict buildings, hell I like Detroit, but I guess that's a privileged perspective. If I'd grown up around them maybe they'd seem depressing rather than romantic.

New in foreground, old in background

Anyway, if you go for a walk north of Fairbridge Road you can witness an area changing fast from post-industrial ramshackle to shiny and new. 

Many thanks to Ali at stroudgreen.org for showing me the maps, and to @Mizhenka for suggesting Fairbridge Road.

*See the stymied plan to turn the Shaftesbury into flats.

Metro final edition

The Islington Tribune has news that the Metro pub at the southernmost end of Hornsey Road

Metro, 2012

will soon go and become this:

What would replace the Metro: 12 storey block, 40m tall, with 138 hotel rooms

I guess the idea is that people would come to see Arsenal and stay overnight? (Valley girl intonation)

Islington Council turned this down in 2010, but the Communities Department overruled them (as they did with the John Jones building) saying the pub had 'an unremarkable Victorian frontage' and that the new building could add 'a little light and life to the otherwise drab character of this part of Holloway Road'.

Me? I hadn't even noticed the Metro was there. I do selective blindness well and can not see things even when they're dancing the tango. I sleep through earthquakes and walk into lampposts. It's not like they're trying to close down the Torriano.

Still, one of this blog's vaguely stated purposes is to do a Robert Opie and make a record of overlooked places before they go. So here's what the Metro looks like now:

Goodnight.