What happened to the neighbourhood?

[dryfter]

Something I like about London: Cycling along the pretty canal towpaths, as the flagstones clank under my tyres, on a sunny day.

Something I dislike about London: Crackhead (black/white)-trash teens under canal bridges, baring their teeth at me like animals as I cycle past.

What is it with me and trouble.. Sometimes it feels like I get far more than my fair share of it here.
On Friday night I wandered over to the bus stop on Essex Road, only to discover there was a mob of around 20-40 youths wearing tracksuits and hoodies, engaged in pitched battle, roiling back and forth across the road in waves of attack/defence. Pedestrians fleeing down side streets, and shops locking up their doors - and then staring out in morbid fascination.
An armada of police cars approached, and the mob fled at the sound of the incoming sirens - still flinging bottles at each other as they stampeded past the flinching pedestrians who had been hiding around the corners.

The other week there was a "minor" gun battle between two cars in rush hour, near Hackney Central - I gather the only injuries were bystanders hit by ricocheting bullets, rather than the gangs involved. That's only 1.3 miles east of my place! I believe that's something of a first for the area (although of course it has nothing on Lower Clapton).

I thought this area was getting BETTER, not worse! WTF?


In other news: Went to Matt's birthday drinks and dinner. Practically rolled home on my stomach afterwards and had to have a lie down. It's now 1am, and although I've perked up, I suspect my window of opportunity to go clubbing has expired.. :(

Comments

[she-rambles.livejournal.com]

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200701/s1834624.htm

Big mass fight at Semaphore on Australia Day.

Haha, we must be so old and conservative. One of these days we're going to be walking around spouting the old "In MY day we respected people and didn't pick fights just so we could film them and post them on youtube!"

I'll say this for Japan. It's racist, but the racism is so ingrained that it's just totally accepted, so you don't get big racist brawls. You don't get any brawls at all, really.

[wintrmute.livejournal.com]

I can see myself turning into some kind of hermit/survivalist-nutter in the future. Camped out on an island in a log cabin, taking pot-shots at any boats that come near..

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

And the height of racist insult is laughing at you and letting doors close in your face, rather than shooting you and sending the video to all their friends.

[squirmelia.livejournal.com]

All sounds pretty scary. :( I get worried enough when people shout things at me in the street, so bottles and guns would probably terrify me.

Perhaps the Mole Man did have the right idea?

[noondaydemon.livejournal.com]

I used to live in Islington: first on Essex Road, and then St Paul's Road.

On Essex Road, there was a backstreet near the library, across from the Purple Turtle. We came across some thugs smashing up a car, jumping on the hood/winscreen etc. This was a common fate for cars parked there.

On St Paul's Road, violent twits would harass the kindly Turkish family who ran the off-licence - I even witnessed death threats issued by an ice-cream van driver to one of the teenaged sons.

There was one occasion when the street was blocked with about twenty hoodies, some of whom had baseball bats.

I now live in SE London, which has its own problems. N1 is meant to be posh but can be a horrible place to live.