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The second man I spoke to runs (and lives above) a shop on Pitfield Street. Unlike our yuppie interloper, he'd been in the area since the 1980s. He saw the Foundry as embodying the artistic spirit of the area and was angry to see it closed down, to be replaced by something of no value to the local community.
He agreed that there was a problem with binge drinking, but that was the out-of-town crowd, and they certainly weren't coming to the Foundry.
He said the hotel would be utterly out of character with the area, towering above the apartment block over the road. Most residents were opposed to it, he said, despite what the other man might have told me.
He said he had submitted a 50-page objection to the hotel, solidly argued in terms of planning law, but it had been utterly ignored. He suggested the council's decision had been influenced by receiving a generous donation from the developers; against which the protests of residents such as himself stood no chance. This is totally unverified, but I'd be interested to hear more.
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Here's an interview with one of the occupiers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UezPM2YxUwo&feature=youtu.be&a
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I can't say his arguments for why the hotel should be stopped are particularly coherent.
"it used to be really cultural and really artistic and nice."
It used to be a shithole before that. The reason Midland Bank moved out twenty years ago. Things go in cycles. The arty era of Shoreditch ended about 8 years ago. When the Holiday Inn across the road got built, the writing was on (or hurriedly being sandblasted off) the wall.
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Yeah I got that one. Had to go to urban dictionary though
I remember we used to have a lock up on New Inn Yard in the mid 90s. The whole place was a shit hole. Most of the buildings were deserted and falling apart. Loads of pros' everywhere. It has changed a lot in the past 15 years. But if it wasn't for some level of gentrification it would still be the same shit hole it was back then and no one would give a fuck about it.
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He has a strange accent for a local
He looks and sounds quite uncannily like one of the guys recently violently thrown out of the old cinema on Essex Road by the church group which owns it:
http://microfilmswebtv.com/films/s/VHS_basements_illegal_eviction/20084
Before that, they were in the former Walkabout pub on Upper Street. I don't think they were seeking for the pub to be re-opened, however!:
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the foundry can fuck off. it was a hole. anyone selling stale £4.50 organic pints and charging people to put on art shows can fuck off. if you're not going to reinvest at least some of your profits into the community, at least invest it into making your pub more comfortable. or at least a decent speaker or two. and as for community, i mean seriously. that crazy woman who writes "poems" about earthworms? she can fuck off, too. aside from the messengers, there wasn't much of a community around the foundry.
i disagree that a posh hotel is not in keeping with the neighbourhood. at 17 stories, it's arguably too tall for the neighbourhood. but that triangle desperately needs redeveloping. it's incredible that, while shoreditch highstreet (which was a hole), redchurch street (which was a hole that doesn't even have the redemption of busy foottraffic) and rivington street (which was a scummy back alley full of trash and prostitutes) all got transformed into cool streets, but a major intersection with commercial real estate fronting the street can't attract a single interesting business.
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Did they charge people to put on art shows? I thought they allowed anyone to exhibit there, and I never heard anything about them charging artists anything. I might be wrong but I thought its whole reputation came from their walls being available to anyone who called themselves an artist.
There are still plenty of derelict buildings around the centre of Shoreditch. There's one near Charlie Wright's on Pitfield Street which currently has a StikMan graffiti on it. There's a gutted building on Redchurch Street at the junction with Bethnal Green Road.
And what's the story with the collapsing buildings on Great Eastern Street? The owners can't afford to do them up, and aren't allowed to knock them down? Are they listed in some way? So why don't the owners sell them?
This isn't just about the recession - these buildings have been empty decades, and the rebirth of the area has passed them by.
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I remember it in the late 90s/early 00s, as with the LCC in Hackney we were very involved in the traffic scheme to turn it back to two-way operation and also held a couple of Car-Free Days and Shoreditch Festivals there. The only problem is that I can't really compare it to now as I haven't really been back (gone out there/spent much time there) since about 2004. :)
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just to wade in ,
seems like to me its group of people who feel the need to belong to something as there lives are boring,
as for the whole area thing, while perhaps i'm a tad to young to have seen it 8 year ago, i have to agree with everyone that things go in cycles. my old work was based in shorditch from 98-03 and had it as they got it cheep, it was cheep cos no one wanted to be there. thats why is became artys as artist have no money, artist make it cool it becomes expensive, the artist leve and then its just rich, then its redeveloped, and eventually fails and the whole process starts all over again.
as for the foundy itself all i here is the same arguments you here anytime a ''arts'' venue closes (or bar) is that people love it and don't want it to go, yet they never really went that often. on top of this the freeholder gets an offer for development, why would he say no? i wouldn't. its just a building, go make foundry 2.0 somewhere else. and as for the ''if it was an arts venue if would have stayed' then be and arts venue, not a bar that puts on art shows
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For the people who do remember Shoreditch before it got all gentrified (I'm too young); what sort of streets/parts of London now did it resemble? Totally can't picture it as a shit hole.
There is a building on Great Eastern Street, an old factory I think, that still has bomb damage from the war. The whole area was kind of like that. It was very heavily bombed and never really recovered until the late 90s'
Grimy cobbled back streets full of derelict old warehouses, piss heads and whores. If you like urban decay it was great.But even before the war and as far back as Victorian times Shoreditch and in particular Hoxton Street and Square was pretty much the centre for all criminal activity in London
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The foundry never charged artists, you had to exhibit in the bar first and then you could go in the main space, they just asked you to make them something to go into the bar.
However I live across the road and it wasn't a regular haunt - did just mainly drink tinnies outside - will miss the place though. -
Could some of the reason for the protest etc now be cause this makes it so obvious that shoreditch is indeed gone as an 'alternative area for artists and the like'?
It hasn't been for years, but the foundry kept the feeling of 'the old shoreditch' alive, if only in one small corner. And now when the foundry is gone, there isn't really anything left?
Last nail in the coffin etc
nny
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aaaaaaaa
Oliver Schick
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About
Save The Foundry! - action needed
Posted by
@sol
'Demolishing the Tate and keeping the ice cream van'
That's gold