Westfield, Stratford City

Olympic zone walk..
http://pubcensus.co.uk/Olympics/OlympicZoneWalk2006.shtml

Thailander. This bit of Maryland is pits. Full of prostitutes, gangs, drunken forruns looking for a bit action,drug dealers, leisure cats. I dread cycling though there on my way from the pub.

"Full of prostitutes, gangs, drunken forruns looking for a bit action,drug dealers, leisure cats."

What's not to like? Okay maybe the gangs..

My mate lives around the corner.

You see this bit here? It's gone now. It was "reconstructed" for the Olympics, but after the whole Dale Farm fiasco many caravans settled on the green on the verge of Hackney Marshes. This place is now full of discarded garden furniture, nappies and propane canisters :-)

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hackney+marshes&ll=51.552046,-0.022316&spn=0.038159,0.131578&client=safari&oe=UTF-8&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=hackney+marshes&hnear=London,+United+Kingdom&t=m&z=14&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=51.552008,-0.022583&panoid=CKeV7rSMTcN37I5bSnrBfg&cbp=12,341.15,,0,14.09

And here are all the folks who used to live under the Eastway flyover. Much better now.

That whole area was like something from Mad Max only seven years ago. There were also shells of empty tower blocks which now were demolished.

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=hackney+marshes&ll=51.550391,-0.004077&spn=0.008646,0.08214&client=safari&oe=UTF-8&fb=1&gl=uk&hq=hackney+marshes&hnear=London,+United+Kingdom&t=m&vpsrc=6&layer=c&cbll=51.550389,-0.004075&panoid=yBRw81Oq1dj7WkkAA-QJvA&cbp=12,151.32,,0,3.57&fll=51.551993,-0.003777&fspn=0.008646,0.065789&z=15&source=gplus-ogsb

Anything is better than the dump around the former Hackney Bazaar.

This is now the side entrance to Westfield
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ll=51.546669,-0.001151&spn=0.001193,0.004112&gl=uk&vpsrc=0&t=m&z=19&layer=c&cbll=51.546669,-0.001151&panoid=wAzI0SYnl-15MMr84i02EQ&cbp=12,256.81,,0,9.1

Is that right? Are you sayings its now a no go area.That part of Maryland has been a Russian / East European hub for some years now.

It's not a no-go area at all, a new Tesco Metro has opened round the corner on the way to Leytonstone, Maryland Station is getting a massive makeover, the new flats at 160 Stratford High Road are going for £400k, 40% sold to the Chinese. It's rough and scruffy, lots of landlords couldn't give a stuff for their properties and allow them to decay even when the council offer to contribute funding to redevelop and tidy up. The Polish shops were welcomed in Leytonstone, which is only really a shopping paradise if you like motorbike tyres and rancid kebabs. E11 is getting better,slowly, younger people are moving in who can't afford Hackney any more. It's a slow gentrification process, although you could fairly call it a kind of economic ethnic cleansing where poorer people are forced out. The fear is that the athletes' village when converted back into family homes will remain a pocket of affluence surrounded by poverty. The whole area will be very different in two years.

they sang about beautiful beautiful copenhagen
well the below knocks copenhagen into a cocked hat
these are my endz, don't fucking dis the m'land, you fucking cock rockets
E15 Crewz respect

my road in maryland is was tipped as one of the up and coming streets in E15 by the Standard in 1998 how right they were
i am now sitting on a pile of gold

maryland ftw

Twenty years ago Upper Street in Islington was a complete toilet. You have to be brave to be the first person to open a deli of coffee bar or wine bar in down-at-heel areas. It's definitely changing, The City is creeping north and east down Bethnal Green Road. Shoreditch is passe now, you get Essex hen nights down there now. Take The Sun Inn on Bethnal Green Road. Used to be grim and full of mayhem and violence, I got accused of being a copper by a chap snorting in the toilets. It was taken over, refurbished, and now does a great trade with east London trendies, plinky plonky jazz playing, the day's papers on the bar. They banned over thirty people the first month then it settled down. Happened in Leytonstone when the Red Lion was taken over and completely redeveloped by Antic, a chain who specialise in up-and-coming area:

http://eastlondondrinker.wordpress.com/2011/06/15/red-lion-leytonstone/

I'm not saying there isn't a long way to go, any foreign visitor who comes out of Stratford station and turns left instead of right is in for a shock, but I can see the whole E15, E10 and E11 areas changing radically post-games.

The ongoing plans are enormous, the largest project within the M25:

http://www.newham.gov.uk/informationforbusinesses/regenerationprojects/stratfordcity.htm

My white, middle-class Aussie mates have been living around the corner from the Essex Arms for maybe 8 years now. I think one of them might have been jumped, once, going into Leytonwhatsit but I've never had any trouble and neither have the rest of them to my knowledge.

ahh the essex arms
now closed and for sale
the glitterball has taken all of it's clientele

seriously classy bar, it's got lasers and everything
they have a couple of bouncers and a line outside ( never ever seen anyone in the queue to get in )

Ah the Glitter Ball! I've seen the lasers through the door but never gone in. One day, we shall meet and dance to the happy beat.

Shurely Shome mishtake?
Middle-class aussies, whatever next? I thought all aussies were classless...

We are as far as I'm concerned but it's a condition of our visa to specify it these days.

I put "Royalty", obviously.

Twenty years ago Upper Street in Islington was a complete toilet.

Not really. I lived at the top of Roseberry Avenue 91/92 and the whole area up to Islington Town Hall was perfectly safe. There were some restaurants and bars along Upper St, but nothing like what we have now, I agree. It was a normal London high street, with some lovely antiques shops on the opposite side. Hardly a toilet.

Wasn't the Pink Floyd Wall video filmed just off Upper Street? The grim concrete flats? I remember it being very run down a while ago compared to now but I never lived there.

Lots of changes coming, anyone commute down Ruckholt Road, past the car showroom?

I presume the Aussie passport also confirms that you don't have rabies and all your jabs are up to date?

There's no rabies in Australia but the Visa does specify the person's level of sarcasm, dust content, highest level of racism/xenophobia obtained during school and average annual beer consumption.

Ah the Glitter Ball! I've seen the lasers through the door but never gone in. One day, we shall meet and dance to the happy beat.

give me a call when you do i can be there in 3 minutes
and hopefully out of there 5 mins after that

Wasn't the Pink Floyd Wall video filmed just off Upper Street? The grim concrete flats? I remember it being very run down a while ago compared to now but I never lived there.

Lots of changes coming, anyone commute down Ruckholt Road, past the car showroom?

I do. Watch out for cars turning left in to Leyton mills.

they sang about beautiful beautiful copenhagen
well the below knocks copenhagen into a cocked hat
these are my endz, don't fucking dis the m'land, you fucking cock rockets
E15 Crewz respect

my road in maryland is was tipped as one of the up and coming streets in E15 by the Standard in 1998 how right they were
i am now sitting on a pile of gold

maryland ftw

I like this shop!

This place in Maryland is nice also: http://www.allinlondon.co.uk/directory/1150/86241.php

As for this place: http://www.cartandhorses.co.uk/page01.asp?page_id=3

Is that right? Are you sayings its now a no go area.That part of Maryland has been a Russian / East European hub for some years now.

It's mainly hub for Lithuanians and Yardies who want to mix their business.

My wife was robbed there at a kinfepoint two weeks ago, by a gang - two Lithuanians and six Black guys. Don't want to talk about it... Just wanted to show demographics.

The area from Chobham Rd to Stratford proper needs some serious redevelopment.
Same for South Leytonstone. It's all nice in the "leafy" Bushwood area with privately owned semis.
Even CCTV coverage ends at Cathall Ward.

A lot of the houses along that stretch are delapidated and a real eyesore with dead fridges and stained mattresses rotting in the front gardens. Further up, behind the Ivory Mansions asian wedding venue is a row of derelict garages stuffed with rubbish. The council offered to pay to remove it and the landlord refused. Whatcha gonna do?

Further up again, nearly under the railway bridge, was a nail bar that turned out to be a highly successfull brothel:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1384487/Lyubov-Clyde-How-Ukrainian-nail-bar-blonde-English-beau-68-millions-brothels.html

There's more of them. One specialises in grannies (next to Harrow Green post office).

My wife was robbed there at a kinfepoint two weeks ago, by a gang - two Lithuanians and six Black guys.

where was this ? right on maryland point ?
that sucks i've been in the area for 14 years and never had any issues walking back from strattie
admittedly i'm usually hammering past on a bike but still never had any issue

i hope she's OK EEI