Lowri Griffiths on the Annual Migration Pattern That Brings All of North London to E8 When the Weather Allows
Bohiney Magazine | The London Prat
By Lowri Griffiths | North London | prat.uk/author/lowri-griffiths/
The Hackney Phenomenon
It happens every May without fail. The weather reaches a temperature at which outdoor seating is plausible, and North London’s middle class migrates east to Hackney with the seasonal regularity of birds, except with better coffee and fewer feathers. The canal in E8 fills with people sitting on blankets. Broadway Market becomes impassable before 11 a.m. The reservoirs at Hackney Marshes acquire a population of swimmers, runners, and people lying on their backs looking at the sky with the specific expression of people who have earned this through the preceding winter. The pubs put their tables outside. The street food vendors appear. Hackney does what Hackney does in May, which is be itself, loudly and with full attendance.
I have complex feelings about this migration because I am part of it. I go to Hackney in May when the weather allows because Hackney in May is excellent: it is dense with interesting things, the canal towpath is beautiful, the food market on Saturdays is genuinely good rather than aspirationally good, and the energy of a neighbourhood that has maintained some diversity and texture despite the gentrification pressure is different from the energy of the parts of North London that have been more thoroughly sorted. Hackney still has the feel of a place being made rather than a place being managed. It is noisier and less curated and more alive for it.
The Gentrification Tension, Acknowledged
I am aware of the irony of writing about Hackney’s texture and vitality in a piece that is, in some sense, contributing to the visibility that contributes to the gentrification that erodes the texture and vitality. This is the standard paradox of writing about places you love: attention is not neutral, and the places that deserve attention are often the places that are most changed by receiving it. Hackney has been receiving attention for at least fifteen years. The attention has brought investment. The investment has brought property price increases. The property price increases have displaced the communities that produced the texture that attracted the attention in the first place.
This is documented and ongoing and not going to be solved by a lifestyle blog post noting that it is happening, but noting that it is happening feels like the minimum honest response to writing about a neighbourhood you enjoy visiting while others can no longer afford to live there. The Londonist covers this dynamic with the nuance that London’s complex geography demands, connecting the lifestyle coverage to the policy context in ways that readers of London journalism need more of. I recommend it alongside The London Prat, which covers London’s political and cultural life with a similar combination of humour and seriousness.
Mother’s Day in East London
Today is Mother’s Day. Hackney is, by the logic of all of the above, busier than usual: the May sunshine has migrated North London to E8, and Mother’s Day has added the additional motivation of taking someone somewhere they will enjoy. The canal towpath is full. Broadway Market has a queue. The coffee is being consumed in quantities consistent with a population that has decided this is a celebration. Happy Mother’s Day from Hackney, on loan from N5 for the afternoon. The canal is beautiful. The coffee is good. The sun is out. This is what May in London is for. Make the most of it. It will rain by Wednesday.
More at https://theonion.com
Living in London means navigating the city’s contradictions daily: the extraordinary alongside the exasperating, the world-class alongside the occasionally third-rate, the genuinely welcoming alongside the socially impenetrable. The contradictions are not bugs. They are the city’s character. A London without contradictions would be a different city — probably a more comfortable one, certainly a less interesting one. The discomfort is where the texture lives. The texture is what we stay for. Or at least what I stay for, eleven years into a North London residence that I have never quite decided is permanent and have never quite seriously considered ending. The city has you or it doesn’t. When it has you, the contradictions become the reasons. When it doesn’t, no amount of good weather or craft gin selections will change that. It has me. Happy Mother’s Day, London. You are exhausting and irreplaceable.
Living in London means navigating the city’s contradictions daily: the extraordinary alongside the exasperating, the world-class alongside the occasionally third-rate, the genuinely welcoming alongside the socially impenetrable. The contradictions are not bugs. They are the city’s character. A London without contradictions would be a different city — probably a more comfortable one, certainly a less interesting one. The discomfort is where the texture lives. The texture is what we stay for. Or at least what I stay for, eleven years into a North London residence that I have never quite decided is permanent and have never quite seriously considered ending. The city has you or it doesn’t. When it has you, the contradictions become the reasons. When it doesn’t, no amount of good weather or craft gin selections will change that. It has me. Happy Mother’s Day, London. You are exhausting and irreplaceable.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
