Dec 21, 2018 00:36
On the corner the former fire station is occupied by Buddhists; variants of yoga and mindfulness are practised there. The other morning, early, two pale young men were at its entrance, verbally altercating; they were in disagreement and had Taken It Outside. As I passed I heard one to say to the other: "...I hear that, I accept that, but how you make me feel, when you..."
Out of the disused public toilet at the corner of the gardens by the tube station, a small bar/restaurant thas been contrived. Before this establishment was installed a coffee stall was displaced, the eviction being effected passively: the proprietor's power supply was cut off. My initial impression of the new establishment was of the generic cafe background scene in a television series, or the aspirational images depicted on a retail development hoarding. Later an acquaintance remarked that it "...looks like something off of fucking Hollyoaks", which I think is the same thing in fewer words.
In the evenings, the whir of Ocado vans and the buzz of food delivery scooters; my block is one of three with the same name and the mopeds move from one to the next in confusion, nosing around the corners, like bees at a rose bush.
My building was a place where cleaners lived; now several of my neighbours are visited weekly by cleaners.
The process of economic, social and cultural change locally is not so much one of gentrification, but suburbanisation.