hackney, i'm in ya AREA

- i've still not been to The Dove yet so we should do that sharpish.
- if you like to swim head for the all-new LIDO
- as you may well know Mare St. has many good Vietnamese eateries. Tre Viet is my fave so far.
- broadway market is still ridic. expensive good despite/regardless of a certain 'mono(boho)culturalism' in both traders and clientele

xpost it's really nice, like in the "uh how in the hell did we manage to do this?" kind of way.

Stelfox and I both also rate Tre Viet. H3l3n rates Green Papaya. One is spoilt for choice. Up by Sinkah's is also Bohemia Place which pretty much does what it says on the box.

the parking lot behind my building contains three old carriages. they have no seats. they're covered with tarps, but in a kind of half-ass way, so the rain gets in. it's odd to me that there are horse-drawn carriages behind my building, but it's reassuring too, because in the coming oil apocalypse i can find someone with a horse, and we can both take to the open road, away from the burning cities.

If you're circumscribed by the landmarks at the top of the thread, then.. you're probably REAL close! I haven't found any real hidden treasures, Broadway Market is nice but hipster infested. Emsk used to live around here, up on Queensbridge, she should be able to fill you in.

There's a pub up north, the Eclipse on Blurton St.

I LOVE HACKNEY

Teh George = great jukebox informed by two or three generations of music-biz "indie" "kids". But also must not forget Pub In The Park and the Carhartt outlet store.

what do they call dumpster diving in london? skip ripping?

lex thank for your top 20 list of awesomeness!

a guy selling aubergine leather trousers yesterday tried to convince me to go to a place called bistrotek.

But closer is Biddles on Lower Clapton Rd, near the PORTICO which along with the Round Chapel gives weight to the famous slogan "See Clapton And Die". I'm not aware of any other interpretations...

i don't remember posting any of that last night? i stand by it though

who don't know what 'pompous' means.

Perhaps i should have said puffed up with self-importance

anyway, Ocean has been staging the odd event now and then lately i notice. good to see it actually being used.

there are still too many derelict/disused but listworthy buildings in the area. the old town hall for example.

xpost

Homerton is still prety cheap right?

It was the singularly most obnoxious behaviour I have ever seen in my life but also weirdly fascinating to see a place resist gentrification like that.

xpost

It was the singularly most obnoxious behaviour I have ever seen in my life but also weirdly fascinating to see a place resist gentrification like that.

I like how you've practically characterised the trendy couple as New Hackney and the obnoxious alkies as Old Hackney here!

xpost

In Old London everyone was smashed out of their face on gin all the time so I'm not far wrong.

Actually, that wasn't the point I was trying to make, it's just Broadway Market seems like more of a bubble than pretty much anywhere else in London and it was a bit weird to see that burst in such an unpleasant way.

I commend Tracer's bravery on moving to 'the worst place to live in the UK' (excellent reverse-psychology marketing here) anyway.

90 seconds' walk from our house, no less! It's brilliant.

We drove down Mare St last night - that's the road with the Empire and the fairy-lit trees outside the...town hall, perhaps? Glitzy but strangely grim too. I can kind of see why people become attached to the place, though.

Does ILX have any representation in W/NW London? Kilburn, Harlesden, Willesden Green, all those places? It's a real blind spot in my London knowledge.

Hackney Town Hall is pretty nice-looking. I don't know what all the anti-gentrifiers are on about because the place has beautiful housing stock all over it for a reason - it was built as a middle-class 'suburb' back in the day. It's not as if these are City types - and those are the people you should be worried about due to they don't actually give a shit about others.

Well, I used to live by Kilburn tube. But I wasn't on ILX then.

Is Homerton the worst part of Hackney? My friend was going on about how rough it is this weekend. She lives in Willesden, not far from Church End, so I'm assuming it must be pretty bad if she won't go anywhere near the place.