Brixton news, rumour and general chat - January 2015

[Rushy]

It's very subjective, isn't it. I recall feeling mostly comfortable with Brixton since I've lived here. But you get used to what you know and it seems normal. I would always be reminded of that when I'd mention in conversation removing syringes, crack pipes and turds from my garden every week, which seemed quite every day to me yet would leave people literally speechless.

 

[ViolentPanda]

I would rather have "todays" Brixton than old Brixton where the night time (and day) economy was a crack and heroin market, empty shops and crack houses every 10 feet, No go areas,estates where the postman had a police escort, Junkies piping crack and banging up heroin in stairwells and doorways,Muggings at knifepoint, prostitution,arguments settled with a shoot out. Dealers jumping into your car whist sat in the coldharbour lane traffic. I like a bit of nostalgia but fuck that.

Yeah, empty shops and crack houses every ten feet.
If you're trying to make a point, it's best to be accurate, not hyperbolic.
And guess what? the crime still happens, it's just been shifted away from where it was visible to where it's less visible.

 

[ViolentPanda]

what do you do for a living? do you have any unearned income from property etc. what's your relationship to capital?

As long as he's not a rentier, I think that Proletarian Democracy (TM) should issue him with a provisional licence to live.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You forgot burnt out cars.

And half-dismantled Ford Cortinas in front gardens, blues parties in every second flat on Stockwell Park estate, and not being able to walk down the part of Brixton Water Lane between Tulse and Brixton Hills without stepping on spunk-filled condoms, sharps, crack pipes or dead sex workers.

 

[ViolentPanda]

it's also not actually what i'm saying. i'm not talking about individuals. i'm talking about the system. which you presumably knew, because you're smart enough to use a computer without injuring yourself, but you'd love to present yourself as gentle tolerant types whilst the mean lefties peddle their bigotry.

Does that mean I'm a "mean leftie"?
Cool!

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not sure what period you're talking about here, but I don't recall living in anything anywhere near as bad as that - and I've been in the 'notorious' Barrier Block for over 20 years and visiting Brixton for a lot longer.

And before then, in the '80s, most of the dealing, prostitution and general nastiness was confined to a handful of estates, a couple of which (Clapham Park and the Brandon estate in Kennington) weren't even in Brixton.

 

[SarfLondoner]

Not sure what period you're talking about here, but I don't recall living in anything anywhere near as bad as that - and I've been in the 'notorious' Barrier Block for over 20 years and visiting Brixton for a lot longer.

And while I won't deny that things have been particularly grim at times, for every minus point in that list, there was plenty of plus points about living here, many of which have long since disappeared.

It seems that in modern Brixton, the amount of enjoyment you get out of the place is far more linked in with how much money you've got - and there's still plenty of people here who haven't got very much at all.

editor Got a fever +the only prescription is more cowbell

3. No-one has yet explained to me what is so horrifically unbearable about having drug dealers living or working in your vicinity.
Maybe it's something to do with the increased likelihood of being mugged/robbed or randomly assaulted by their crackhead customers, having crack prostitutes using your doorway for sex with customers or having to step over dangerous used needles on the kids play area outside?

There's only one street in London that I won't walk down at night and guess what - it's where the crack dealers operate!


Your point of view has changed since 2005.

 

[SarfLondoner]

Yeah, empty shops and crack houses every ten feet.
If you're trying to make a point, it's best to be accurate, not hyperbolic.
And guess what? the crime still happens, it's just been shifted away from where it was visible to where it's less visible.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Are you implying that your post wasn't hyperbolic?

 

[AnotherAmbition]

Live shot of the ongoing sewage works....

 

[AnotherAmbition]

Anyone know whats been going on on Electric Avenue for the past week or so? Steady stream of sewage trucks pumping from out the back of one of the butchers. Bottom half of the Market has been closed for the last few days.

Live shot of the ongoing sewage works....

 

[teuchter]

Ah, you mean like lumping them all together to make a statement like, 'Gentrifiers tend not to recognise themselves as such'?

 

[Nanker Phelge]

Brixton has had some troubled times. I remember not being able to go home one night cos a guy had been shot through the head in his car outside my house.

There were crack houses, and Coldharbour Lane could be a difficult road to navigate without being propositioned for drugs or sex.

It wasn't some crime apocalypse though. The world wasn't collapsing around us. It was a bit grim.

I raised a child to 18 years of age here and he's seen relatively little trouble, even the two times he was mugged it was done quite politely....

I've been here for over 20 years and the worst I've faced directly was a bunch of teen girls attacking me with umbrellas because I stepped in as they attacked a gay couple. That was around 20 years ago, and was more funny than it was harmful.

I think some people enjoy perpetuating the myth that it was some kind of lawless mega city one style hell hole.

It really wasn't...

 

[boohoo]

What I hate about this conversation is I'm having to justify my memories of my childhood to a lot of you.
I don't know if Nanker Phelge and ViolentPanda are mocking my memory of burnt out cars.
But it feels pretty shit to be told that my experience and perception is not quite right. And often by people who landed here in the 1990s.

I don't expect you to all share the same views as me - I was a child and a teenager in the 1970s and 1980s and some of you were grow-ups. I respect the differences and recognise that being in a different place in a different time at a different age will create different opinions.

 

[teuchter]

My impression (landing in 1999) was that things had changed a fair bit between the 80s and 90s. Certainly at that point it seemed that many people's impression of what Brixton was "like" seemed quite a lot out of whack with the reality and I took that to be because their information was maybe 10 years out of date rather than 50. This is people from other parts of London, not folk who'd never actually been to Brixton but had seen the riots on the news (whose imagination of what it was like was even further divorced from reality).

 

[ViolentPanda]

What I hate about this conversation is I'm having to justify my memories of my childhood to a lot of you.
I don't know if Nanker Phelge and ViolentPanda are mocking my memory of burnt out cars.
But it feels pretty shit to be told that my experience and perception is not quite right. And often by people who landed here in the 1990s.

I'm not telling you your "experience is not quite right",and neither am I mocking your memory, I'm simply saying that yes, that shit happened, but that what SarfLondoner claimed - there being a crack den or empty shop every ten feet, and dealers, sex workers and ne'er-do-wells so thick on the ground you couldn't move for treading on them, is hyperbolic bull in much the same way as "the Winter of Discontent" is - it's people remembering the edited horror highlights rather than any of the good or even indifferent bits of life in and around Brixton from the '70s to the '90s. Yes, bits of Brixton (in fact of Lambeth) could be scary, but they weren't the murderous claustrophobic hell-holes they're sometimes portrayed as, either.

 

[SarfLondoner]

Are you implying that your post wasn't hyperbolic?

Yes.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I don't remember Brixton being particularly bad when I was growing up in the 80s—if anything I thought it was better than most, given that it had a proper high street and (as I got older) clubs—but then I did grow up in Tulse Hill and tbh it was just another shitty dismal part of shitty dismal South London. I'd still have much rather wandered around Brixton than, say, Norwood.

The whole area has definitely got better since that time but not because of gentrification, which has been relatively recent and simply will never provide the deep structural changes that are necessary to improve an area. I'm sure I don't need to go on a rant on that point.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Yes.

Then I suspect you're deluded. Apart from anything else it's impossible to have empty shops and crack houses every 10ft, because the average frontage for a shop is 12-14 feet, and more for a house.
So, hyperbole.

As for the rest of your post, as I've said previously,yes, all of that shit happened, but not in the non-stop, intense way you imply, and not all at the same time. As for "no go areas", I'm a white bloke, and never found trouble on any of my nocturnal peregrinations around Brixton. A couple of propositions from sex workers on the corner of Josephine Ave and Water Lane, but scarcely "no go". Even when my own estate was notorious for sex workers fucking clients on our stairwells and banging up, it wasn't a "no go area", unless your sensibilities were so delicate that the sight of human misery roused nausea in you, rather than compassion.

 

[Nanker Phelge]

What I hate about this conversation is I'm having to justify my memories of my childhood to a lot of you.
I don't know if Nanker Phelge and ViolentPanda are mocking my memory of burnt out cars.
But it feels pretty shit to be told that my experience and perception is not quite right. And often by people who landed here in the 1990s.

I don't expect you to all share the same views as me - I was a child and a teenager in the 1970s and 1980s and some of you were grow-ups. I respect the differences and recognise that being in a different place in a different time at a different age will create different opinions.

I wasnt responding to you at all. I witnessed burnt out cars too.

 

[CH1]

It's very subjective, isn't it. I recall feeling mostly comfortable with Brixton since I've lived here. But you get used to what you know and it seems normal. I would always be reminded of that when I'd mention in conversation removing syringes, crack pipes and turds from my garden every week, which seemed quite every day to me yet would leave people literally speechless.

I can only recall 1 turd (in 1997 I think) and hardly any syringes - but my frontage on Coldharbour Lane is amply supplied with wheelie bins.

 

[SarfLondoner]

I'm not telling you your "experience is not quite right",and neither am I mocking your memory, I'm simply saying that yes, that shit happened, but that what SarfLondoner claimed - there being a crack den or empty shop every ten feet, and dealers, sex workers and ne'er-do-wells so thick on the ground you couldn't move for treading on them, is hyperbolic bull in much the same way as "the Winter of Discontent" is - it's people remembering the edited horror highlights rather than any of the good or even indifferent bits of life in and around Brixton from the '70s to the '90s. Yes, bits of Brixton (in fact of Lambeth) could be scary, but they weren't the murderous claustrophobic hell-holes they're sometimes portrayed as, either.

You are right,I have made it all up,I never witnessed none of it,There was no drugs market,No murders,no prostitutes,No crack houses. As for hyperbolic " sex workers and ne'er-do-wells so thick on the ground you couldn't move for treading on them", is your very own bit of hyperbole.

 

[SarfLondoner]

Then I suspect you're deluded. Apart from anything else it's impossible to have empty shops and crack houses every 10ft, because the average frontage for a shop is 12-14 feet, and more for a house.
So, hyperbole.

As for the rest of your post, as I've said previously,yes, all of that shit happened, but not in the non-stop, intense way you imply, and not all at the same time. As for "no go areas", I'm a white bloke, and never found trouble on any of my nocturnal peregrinations around Brixton. A couple of propositions from sex workers on the corner of Josephine Ave and Water Lane, but scarcely "no go". Even when my own estate was notorious for sex workers fucking clients on our stairwells and banging up, it wasn't a "no go area", unless your sensibilities were so delicate that the sight of human misery roused nausea in you, rather than compassion.

 

[Rushy]

I can only recall 1 turd (in 1997 I think) and hardly any syringes - but my frontage on Coldharbour Lane is amply supplied with wheelie bins.

I've always found it quite tricky to shit in a wheelie bin unless someone holds it steady for you.

One offering in particular is engrained in my memory. He was either a very big chap or accompanied by an ox. I actually took people down the garden to show them. Come to think of it, I haven't seen some of those people since.

 

[friendofdorothy]

So apart from the shootings,muggings and stabbings it was fine.

Yes, I was agreeing with you, thats how I remember it. It was grim in parts, at times. The drugs issue in the 90s was outrageous with all the related disorder and violence. Brixton did have a deserved bad reputation, but other towns and cities had similar problems too.

I suppose the point I was making that despite all that crime, Brixton was still a great place. There was such a interesting mix of people from different places and so many cultured, political and creative people. But like someone said earlier, people are people - there was kindness, fun and good times too, I don't think thats too nostalgic. I used to say - you can say what you like about Brixton but its never dull.

 

[friendofdorothy]

editor I do see an improvement. Much of the social housing has improved so that conditions aren't as bad. The Stockwell Park Estate was hugely improved as a place to live by the hard work of some of the residences. There are still problems that need to be address and the new issues of people being pushed out of the area, communities broken up and the removal of businesses serving local needs to be replaced with spaces which are serving a few.

My childhood in Brixton and Stockwell saw violent crime after dark, dereliction and poverty - it doesn't mean that these things don't exist now but I do believe it isn't as bad as it was.

I walked around the stockwell park with my niece (35yr old) last summer to look at her childhood haunts. The design of that estate was horrible - designed for men in cars. Some bits of the estate are unrecognisable from back then - it looks so much better now. Looked like they had converted some garages into homes, improved paths, entrances, access, etc.

I hate the demolishion of council homes to make way for 'the junction' private expensive flats.

 

[friendofdorothy]

Then I suspect you're deluded. Apart from anything else it's impossible to have empty shops and crack houses every 10ft, because the average frontage for a shop is 12-14 feet, and more for a house.
So, hyperbole.

As for the rest of your post, as I've said previously,yes, all of that shit happened, but not in the non-stop, intense way you imply, and not all at the same time. As for "no go areas", I'm a white bloke, and never found trouble on any of my nocturnal peregrinations around Brixton. A couple of propositions from sex workers on the corner of Josephine Ave and Water Lane, but scarcely "no go". Even when my own estate was notorious for sex workers fucking clients on our stairwells and banging up, it wasn't a "no go area", unless your sensibilities were so delicate that the sight of human misery roused nausea in you, rather than compassion.

Don't think SarfLondoner is deluded or suffers from delicate sensibilities.
There where some 'no go' areas for cabs, deliveries, police. I don't think he did imply it was non stop intense

 

[friendofdorothy]

Then I suspect you're deluded. Apart from anything else it's impossible to have empty shops and crack houses every 10ft, because the average frontage for a shop is 12-14 feet, and more for a house.
So, hyperbole.

As for the rest of your post, as I've said previously,yes, all of that shit happened, but not in the non-stop, intense way you imply, and not all at the same time. As for "no go areas", I'm a white bloke, and never found trouble on any of my nocturnal peregrinations around Brixton. A couple of propositions from sex workers on the corner of Josephine Ave and Water Lane, but scarcely "no go". Even when my own estate was notorious for sex workers fucking clients on our stairwells and banging up, it wasn't a "no go area", unless your sensibilities were so delicate that the sight of human misery roused nausea in you, rather than compassion.

You are in a nit picking mood. There where some 'no go' areas. I don't think he did imply it was non stop everywhere. Don't think SarfLondoner is deluded or suffers from delicate sensibilities.

No one, especially children and vulnerable people, should have to put up with anyone using public spaces as brothels or for using drugs, it degrades us all - that isn't just being 'delicate'.

 

[Dexter Deadwood]

There are certainly no go areas now, Granville Arcade for one. We never needed security guards back in the day.

 

[Rushy]

You are in a nit picking mood. There where some 'no go' areas. I don't think he did imply it was non stop everywhere. Don't think SarfLondoner is deluded or suffers from delicate sensibilities.

No one, especially children and vulnerable people, should have to put up with anyone using public spaces as brothels or for using drugs, it degrades us all - that isn't just being 'delicate'.

To be fair, I think this set to is more about SarfLondoner not toeing the line.