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business, shoreditch
The Death of Shoreditch – Part 2
Whilst part 1 of “The Death of Shoreditch” was more of a satirical look at the Shoreditch scene, part 2 is about a much more imminent and critical threat, bigger than djs playing Sinitta and Essex kiddies wearing Hackett and happy slapping Hoxton heroes.
We’re scared here at Worship Street Irregulars. We’re now in the shadow of a gigantic shard of glass known as Broadgate Tower or something equally unimaginative. Now we were kind of alright with that at the start, until they then quickly demolished all of the warehouses on Hearn Street/Plough Yard to build a 51 storey hotel. What the fuck!!!
Image courtesy of OPEN Shoreditch (please check out their website and get involved if you want to have your say in the development)
If this development goes ahead, it’s going to cast a significant shadow (literally) over the Shoreditch vibe and to be honest, I think the development and the ancillary developments will threaten Shoreditch High Street, Great Eastern Street and Curtain Road eventually. I agree with the sentiments on the OPEN Shoreditch site, there needs to be an incredible amount of care taken with this development, especially going into a recession.
Key Questions:
Do we want to feel claustrophobic every time we step out the house, being looked down upon by these cold and distant structures?
How do these barrier buildings affect communities?
Why not Canary Wharf or back towards Bank? Why must the City spread further East?
What do large scale office developments offer to the communities they are placed in? What do they give back other than the corporate pound?
Will local businesses be driven out as the corporate appetite arrives and demands more All Bar Ones and other such banal chain antics?
Also, according to the picture, we won’t have a fucking house/office. It’d be nice if someone had asked our opinion on this…don’t worry we are now mobilising the troops, the revolution will not be televised.
It reminds me of a poem I wrote quite a while back when I lived in Devon:
The Countryside was saved
Hoorah! The hedgerows have been saved
The bankers and lawyers and big city brawlers
Came and chased the tractors away.
Hoorah! The promenade has been saved
With their need for antiquities and organic infrequencies
They chased the fisherman away.
Hoorah! The Village Hall has been saved
Because it’d be frankly barbaric for Lucinda and Tariq
To have their birthday any other way
They chased the community away.
Hoorah! The future has been saved
With their second and third homes
Pushing prices out further than the old trombone
That the village band used to play
They chased the soul away.
[...] councilors and in the other we have pretty much everyone else. The plans that I discussed in my ‘Death of Shoreditch’ article, i.e. building a 25 storey hotel next to the imposing Bishopsgate Tower are still in the [...]
Every week we get a mail shot from Foxtons, boasting about their City clients massive bonus’s, claiming in no uncertain terms that they want to buy us out. Fortunately my landlord, who owns most of our terrace, hates City boys almost as much as he hates the Council, so we’re saved.
Living right at the top of Shoreditch High St, I can almost literally, and certainly figuratively, see the City creep up the hill, like the creeping nothingness in The Neverending Story.
[...] Death of Shoreditch Part 2 [...]