- The Cow: Watering Hole for the young...and disenfanchised? - John Stiles
When Westfield opened the second of its shopping malls in London's east end the citizens of Stratford's most deprived boroughs of Hackney and Newham poured in like fans rushing to the front of Wembley Stadium for Live Aid, 1986. On the Mall's opening day alone over 160,000 people crammed into John Lewis and paced the ritzy shopping arcades of Prada and low cost alternatives such as Primark. Never before have so many of London's citizens who have had so little experienced so much luxury and space. According to London Mayor Boris Johnson, who presided over the opening (with pop stars Nicole Scherzinger, retail mogul Phillip Green and former Olympic athletes) the mall represents “the most regeneration east London has seen since the Middle Ages.” For those from the east end it must have come as a remarkable awakening.
From Canada's East Coast to London's East End
As a Canadian living in the East End of London I cannot pretend to be a local who has lived through the worst of the deprivation of the London's East End War years, nor do I have any great inside knowledge of the regions most famous citizens, David Beckham, Alfred HiItchcock, the Krays or Jack the Ripper. What I knew of the east end of London I knew from a creaky 1970's black and white television, books in my father's study and what my father, a native North Londoner, told me as a boy growing up in the maritime provinces in Canada: "The East End of London was a rough place, full of gangsters, thugs, dodgy builders, cheeky chappies who loved a punt at the local bookies." It was a place to go through, not a place to stop and live in! Therefore as a native of Canada and having arrived here at the advanced age of 36, I can not claim to have suffered through the poor transportation links the lack of transport services, the grinding poverty, the bitter lack of hope in the faces of the deprived communities from those times.
However, as an East End resident of London's inner city of more than seven years, I have seen the transformation of the London's most deprived and neglected boroughs such as Newham and Waltham Forest evolve over the seven years that I have lived here. I have watched the beginnings of the announcement of the Olympics in 2005 in Trafalgar Square through to the sudden dispiriting let down of the London bombings, watched and taken an interest in the spiralling costs of the Games, the public battle to provide a voice and jobs to the people of the east end, pondered the security concerns of the Games, the bitter battle and decision to install a Premiership football team in the stadium once the Games is over, overheard the animosity of local residents towards the soulless, white elephant that the Olympic stadium - and tower - represent. A damning article on the BBC, states that the Oympic logo itself is a source of derision and scorn, a "bubblegum swastica." However amidst all the turmoil - and this does not include the London riots - I have also grown an attachment to the place that only a local can have. I have wandered the back streets of Leytonstone, walked along Hackney Marshes, the canals, discovered the parks near Wanstead Flats, the delights of Epping Forest, and so can report that as the Olympics approach the area bears little resemblance to the abandoned and neglected place I arrived to on a 55 bus from Oxford Street almost eight years ago.
Enthusiasm, Protests
However, this enthusiasm for the changes that have taken place is not without its detractors. Perhaps most critical of the Olympics legacy is the Hackney poet Iain Sinclair who once lived on the site itself, volunteering at a local farm and whose new book, Ghost Milk, is highly critrical of the Games. After all when you have lived and worked on the site that has been pulled down, the feelings must be personal, no? Watching from behind the razor wire of The Greenway near where the farms and allotments used to be surely Sinclair, the person, must feel a sense of disenfranchisement and loss at all of this upheaval and change. As he writes in Ghost Milk, where have the jobs that have been promised to the East enders gone? Memory is a powerful thing. But is the poets voice, a thin reedy voice all alone in the world of clanking building equiptment and blokes on bulldozers with hard hats telling you to get off their land. There was a piece recently on the culture show and also BBC radio 4 documenting Sinclair's disdain. As this massive land grab finishes completion, how will locals or indeed Sinclair feel to see Drapers Fields in Leyton - a historic football pitch on the edge of the Olympic village - bulldozed and paved over to make way for catering and support facilities for athletes? A notice from Waltham Forest council indicates that this is necessary until December of 2012. Is it likely that the sod will be put back down and replaced by the council after the games are over? It is a question worth asking, no?
The Mall
The mall itself is a major development and the largest in Europe. Once you pass over the very large bridge from the old entrance to the Stratford bus station you are transformed into a shiny new and self-contained shoppers paradise complete with all the trappings of a ritzy mall. As the local African, Indian, cockney and Eastern European immigrants mingle they gaze up at the neon Prada and Tag Heuer signs. The mall is spacious and well-lit, there are Hollywood style boulevards, you can anticipate the arrival of palm trees and a racing driver to tear around the circuit at a later date. The place has the feeling of a modern Hollywood set, or perhaps has the Neon Glitz of a Movie Cinema. Life size models of McLaren formula one cars are positioned in windows, perhaps indicative of the clientelle they will likely attract. Trash collectors stalk the mall picking up fag packets and discarded sweet wrappers. Police patrol the entrance way telling you to walk up the sides. Given the recent riots in London, and the development of the square at Stratford Stration, will the venue likely attract its own share of hooligans and criminals and bored teenagers? Since the jails are largely full of organized gangs involved in the London riots, is this a place that they will likely return to once their sentences are complete? There is the sense here of Us vs Them in the community. Just beyond the mall are the tower blocks and low cost housing of the council. If you sit on your council flat you can look out over the whole Olympic complex.
So where does it all end? As the ticker tape gets cut and the velodrome and BMX bike tracks are completed, the time ticks down for the games and the cameras which will surely come from all over the world. But will, like the shoppers who see this as a paradise and an entry point into London, punters simpy use the media centres which have been installed on the grounds or will the camera crews of Korea, China, Brazil and Canada venture out into the streets of the impoverished east end and capture the community for what it was and where it is likely to be? It is a historic moment and one which cannot be overlooked for the furture of the East End.
One thing is clear, since the Olympics were first announced in 2005, the East End is never going to be the same.
