Having spent over a year living in Brixton, I thought it only right to focus a piece of writing on my observations following a short walk around the area. Less tearing at the seams, more picking at the stitches, if you like.
Starting out from my flat on Lambert Road part way up the gentle incline of Brixton Hill, facing down the main road offers a strangely unobstructed view of the cuspidate City skyline. I find this view, as I step out on my way to catch the morning bus, arresting in its orientational immediacy, as though this were a main cable plugging straight into the circuit board of London itself. After dark, with the Shard illumined like a gigantic lightning conductor, its easy to fantasise about these steel and glass structures being some kind of Emerald City to which all traffic is ceaselessly flowing in pilgrimage.
A stone’s throw back up the hill is the charming Brixton Windmill (one of the last remaining in London), and the prison marinading in its own grim notoriety. A short distance across the road you’ll find the beautiful Brockwell Park, a refreshing green expanse that offers another grand panoramic skyline view from Battersea Power Station’s chimneys to Canary Wharf’s elephantine skyscrapers. Indeed, I often find myself intrigued by the horizontal tableau of the skyline which pulls taut the bows and bends of the Thames to give the bizarre geographical misconception of the Houses of Parliament being further distanced from the London Eye than in reality.
Walking down the main road you end up at the main apex point of Brixton, the frozen explosion of roads. On one side, Lambeth Town Hall looms archly with its regal domed clocktower. Opposite, is Windrush Square, named after the boat that in 1948 transported the first of many successive waves of immigrants from the West Indies that came to characterise the area so dramatically. Flanking the square is the Ritzy Picturehouse, one of my favourite cinemas in the world; wonderfully maintained in its original decadent 1911 design.
Turning down Coldharbour Lane, past the modish Dogstar pub and under the railway bridge, you’ll find a striking mural ‘Nuclear Dawn’ transforming the side wall of a run-down social housing building. Painted in 1981, this haunting portrait depicts a skeleton of Death striding across the London landscape as a nuclear mushroom cloud blooms in the background, and doves of peace in flight morph into the CND logo. It is a genuinely thought-provoking paean to Cold War-era paranoia, but is currently under threat due to redevelopment; such is the way. There are a handful of other murals in the area; a quite disturbing rendering of a bunch of seemingly demonic children on the backside wall of Brixton Academy, and a scene of enchanting whimsy with trompe-l’oeil effect on the side of a house on Glenelg Road.
Walking up Atlantic Street, past wig emporiums, open-front halal butchers and fishmongers, one starts to gain an impression as to the sensory ebullience of the place. The pavements are athrong with scents of fish, jerk chicken and cannabis puffed by genuine Rastafarians; Caribbean women pull shopping carts along behind them as though they were fishermen hauling their catch for the day up the beach. The sounds of reggae music and stall owners hawking their trade permeate through the air. On Electric Avenue, stalls and shops are ramparted with stacks of colourful fruit and veg; Scotch Bonnet chillis, hairy yams, bulging plaintains, blushing ackee.
At this point (where Electric Avenue meets Atlantic Street) it is worth reflecting that, if viewed subjectively, it is possible to see just how modern Brixton must once have appeared; you can almost discern a representation of a modernist ideal in its layout and infrastructure. The intersecting train lines scale the roofs of shops, passing through and between elevations, in an intriguing symbiosis with the transits of pedestrians and other traffic, giving the impression almost of a singular organism with each separate limb maintaining a finely-tuned synergy.
Indeed, in the late 19th century, Brixton was a hub of industrial modernity, with Chatham Main Line having been constructed, as well as Electric Avenue (of the Eddy Grant song fame) being the first electrically-lit street in London. In fact, it was only after Brixton was badly bombed during WWII that the roots of urban decay took firm hold, and the previously abundant middle classes were swiftly supplanted by the working class and West Indian migrants. It is an interesting dichotomy that is today still quite a pertinent characteristic.
The area has, like many similar London districts, been undergoing a period of gentrification, most noticably in Brixton Village, a bohemian rabbit warren of independent restaurants and cafes catering for the fickle metropolitan 'foodie' crowd who now flock in their droves.
It remains to be seen just how pronounced or defined this period of regeneration will be. The current local contention is the arrival of Foxtons estate agents to the high street, burrowing their way inside the carcass of another failed business, with their ostentatious glass façade, post-grad staff still wearing in their flashy new suits, and white chrome décor that looks like the space station from ‘2001’.
The opening has been the target of some petty but admittedly quite amusing vandalism from disgruntled locals, who understandably object to this unabashed influx of capitalist infidels intent on pumping rent prices with their fiscal steroids. I empathise entirely with the dissenting opinion, but one look around at the high street also makes one wonder; why was it that this particular opening was deemed one step too far? Why were the openings of several big banks or branches of H&M, Starbucks, Costa Coffee or Boots not also considered offensively corporate? I think the reductivist answer to this is simply that the aforementioned companies are selling people consumables (which Brixtonians adore as much as anybody else), whereas Foxtons are selling Brixton as a brand to outsiders with cash to invest.
For decades the ‘problem child’ of London boroughs, exacerbated by the police’s misguidedly heavy-handed methods which sparked several riots in the 80s and 90s, the area appears to be going through a period of relative placidity; that would certainly be borne out by my own observations over the past year. The police’s more recent adoption of a ‘softly-softly’ approach to dealing with casual drug use might have something to do with this; but despite the tolerance, co-harmony, and lively diversity, there is still the sense of antagonism and tension fermenting just below the surface calm.
All this aside, in terms of the future, Brixton will have to adapt to this next unavoidable chapter in its rich history, and decide whether to try running blindly ahead of, or continue the cautious dipping of its feet in, the onrushing tides of gentrification, all in an effort to avoid being washed over entirely.
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