The decline of Atlantic Road

[hendo]

If you could catch a bus from Atlantic Road that would drop you off in 1955 how many of us would get on it?

- Poor air quality
- National Service
- Hardly any nice restaurants
- No cheap flights
- Cars rust and break down all the time
- Winston Churchill has to resign as PM.
- only 2 TV channels
- The Goons
- No interweb.
- Manchester United win the League.
- Polio still kills and cripples people

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

If you could catch a bus from Atlantic Road that would drop you off in 1955 how many of us would get on it?

- Poor air quality
- National Service
- Hardly any nice restaurants
- No cheap flights
- Cars rust and break down all the time
- Winston Churchill has to resign as PM.
- only 2 TV channels
- The Goons
- No interweb.
- Manchester United win the League.
- Polio still kills and cripples people

how about listing the good things as well?

No mobile phones
No Starbucks
No MacDonalds
No Nail Bars

bit early in the morning for me to think at the moment

 

[untethered]

If you could catch a bus from Atlantic Road that would drop you off in 1955 how many of us would get on it?

- Poor air quality
- National Service
- Hardly any nice restaurants
- No cheap flights
- Cars rust and break down all the time
- Winston Churchill has to resign as PM.
- only 2 TV channels
- The Goons
- No interweb.
- Manchester United win the League.
- Polio still kills and cripples people

Oh you're close, so very close.

Of course, I'd want to take a nice train to 1955.

Surely many of the things you list are virtues (or the consequences of them are).

Rubbish cars? Fewer cars? Easier to walk and cycle? Fantastic.

Rubbish TV? Brilliant. It probably packs up around 9pm too. With the national anthem.

National Service was a wonderful idea bring it back.

Who needs cheap flights? Or for that matter, the Internet?

Etc.

 

[poster342002]

it was pretty grubby and unpleasant in the mid 90s when i used to hang around there.

You should see Walthamstow now. A lot of the market has dwindled and most of the shops are now those pseudo-pound shops (looks like a pound-shop, butthings cost more than £1), money-transfer and "phones unlocked" type-places. The cinema's long gone (ABC, I think it was ...) and the area's not somewhere you want ot hang around in too much after dark.

Even further down the road in Hoe Street, it's a shadow of it's past. I can remeber when that area - along with the Baker's Arms corner - was a heaving and bustling town centre with all manner of leading-brand shops and services.

Sad to see this area's decline - I have a lot of childhod memories of visiting there in it's heyday in the late 70s and 80s.

 

[editor]

- Cars rust and break down all the time

Am I supposed to care on this one? Cars are a fucking noisy, polluting, all-dominating blight on the urban landscape, stopping kids playing around their houses, penning pedestrians into ever decreasing pavement spaces and uglifying areas.

Mind you, I would go bonkers with the lack of entertainment on offer in the 50s.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Mind you, I would go bonkers with the lack of entertainment on offer in the 50s.

Then you'd have to become a criminal. After all, that's why kids are so busy getting into trouble nowadays isn't it, there's nothing for them to do.

Send 'em back to 1955 where they can entertain themselves on old bomb sites and play with catapults instead of fireworks and play in the middle of the road

 

[Lock&Light]

Mind you, I would go bonkers with the lack of entertainment on offer in the 50s.

I lived on a remote Hebridean island in 1955, but even there there were many ways to be entertained. Radio was magical and books were widely available, (as indeed they still are if anyone still wants to use them). The Eagle comic was a weekly delight, while the lack of electricity, at least were I lived, meant bed-time stories were listened to in a candle-light atmosphere, which added to their impact. And that's only indoors. Outdoors was then a much safer and therefore entertaining place for young people to be, than it has become since then.

 

[editor]

I lived on a remote Hebridean island in 1955, but even there there were many ways to be entertained. Radio was magical and books were widely available, (as indeed they still are if anyone still wants to use them).

Thing is, you can't go back now and I like having ten zillion ways of listening to music, radio, watching video, TV, the internet etc.

Although we've definitely lost some good things along the way, I wouldn't want to live in the 1950s. I'll never forget the stupefying boredom of the 70s.

But I think I'd prefer walking around the streets in the 50s. Trams! Steam trains! Empty roads!

 

[Giles]

You really notice the bad state of those buildings when you're waiting for a train. Some of them look on the verge of collapse, and it's not hard to imagine the vermin they might house, so close to a food market.

Can't the owners be forced to do something before they become a real danger?

Does anyone know who DOES own them? It seems a pity to leave the upper parts empty and rotting away given the shortage of housing in London.....

I can't understand why people do this: I am a businessman and a landlord. I would not leave several perfectly good flats like this if they were mine.

Leaving aside the social responsibility argument - even the most money-oriented owner should see that they could make money if they fixed them up and then either sold them or rented them out.

In trendy Brixton surely they would be worth a fair bit?

Giles..

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

Thing is, you can't go back now and I like having ten zillion ways of listening to music, radio, watching video, TV, the internet etc.

Although we've definitely lost some good things along the way, I wouldn't want to live in the 1950s. I'll never forget the stupefying boredom of the 70s.

But I think I'd prefer walking around the streets in the 50s. Trams! Steam trains! Empty roads!

There was a lot worse in the 70s than the boredom - the fashion for a start Bet you wore flairs

 

[editor]

There was a lot worse in the 70s than the boredom - the fashion for a start Bet you wore flairs

I think you mean 'flares', yes?

Middle bit of the 70s was supergroup boredom with a bit of glam thrown in, but the tail end of the decade was one of the best times to be a teenager with punk, new wave, ska, reggae and the likes of the Pistols, Clash, Joy Division, Talking Heads, X Ray Spex, Costello, Ramones, Blondie, Specials and the Ruts etc etc making it one of the best ever periods for music.

 

[Minnie_the_Minx]

I think you mean 'flares', yes?

Middle bit of the 70s was supergroup boredom with a bit of glam thrown in, but the tail end of the decade was one of the best times to be a teenager with punk, new wave, ska, reggae and the likes of the Pistols, Clash, Joy Division, Talking Heads, X Ray Spex, Costello, Ramones, Blondie, Specials and the Ruts etc etc making it one of the best ever periods for music.

yep, that's what I meant. I had flares as well - with lovehearts on the knees

agree with you on the music. I can't even think of any that I remember from the early 70s but then I'm probably a bit younger than you

 

[sir.clip]

Brixton is a dump....

Atlantic road is just an arm pit.. My old man cried when i took him back there as he said it was all broken.. he was born on Railton road in the 30's... I guess things were very different in Brixton back then..

I get sad looking at thoose particular buildings, neglected & crying out for a refurbishment, The Railway hotel is a pillar of demise...

Brixton needs an injection of cash just to keep these historic building intact before the whole lot crumbles down & a new glass structure is thrown up in its place....

 

[hipipol]

Hat shops

There were many hat shops in the fifties - well there were still a few in the 70s
Also the USSR still existed so many of our posters could have emigrated to the now defunct Workers Paradise.
Or use the 5 quid assisted passage scheme to move to Australia

 

[Winot]

If you could catch a bus from Atlantic Road that would drop you off in 1955 how many of us would get on it?

- Poor air quality
- National Service
- Hardly any nice restaurants
- No cheap flights
- Cars rust and break down all the time
- Winston Churchill has to resign as PM.
- only 2 TV channels
- The Goons
- No interweb.
- Manchester United win the League.
- Polio still kills and cripples people

Not a great time to be black or a woman either. And what about all that kow-towing to the establishment?

Still at least you'd have Lucky Jim and Beyond The Fringe to look forward to.

 

[hipipol]

and LSD was still legal, no fucker knew what magic mushrooms were so pick away like a nutter, MDMA was legal, everybody could get their mitts on speed in one form or another, VERY few people had a clue about weed so grow as much as you like no one would recognise it, tell yer doc you feel a bit depressed, six buckets of valium are yours and the scripts free.

The TVs boring so start a rock and roll band and be a the "cutting edge" like, get famous, etc

Personally I'd like a return so I could buy a house then have rented it out 50 years so that not only would the mortgage be paid, but here'd be a fair bit left over when I got back to now!!!!!!

 

[tufty79]

Brixton is a dump....

no it's not... well, i'm from bradford
*loves brixton*

Brixton needs an injection of cash just to keep these historic building intact before the whole lot crumbles down & a new glass structure is thrown up in its place....

fair point

 

[supercity]

with my tinfoil hat on, I can see why it's in the best interests of the owners to collect the rents, let the buildings fall down, say they can't be repaired then build us a bright new shopping centre.

 

[Giles]

with my tinfoil hat on, I can see why it's in the best interests of the owners to collect the rents, let the buildings fall down, say they can't be repaired then build us a bright new shopping centre.

Maybe. Anyone know who DOES own them? Is it a private individual, a big company, even the council?

Giles..

 

[editor]

The top floors of the striking building at the end of Electric Avenue (just seen in the pic) have been empty for years on end.

 

[poster342002]

The top floors of the striking building at the end of Electric Avenue (just seen in the pic) have been empty for years on end.

I can remember a whole row of houses up on Loughborough Road by Fiveways Corner that were derelict throughout the 80s - including one which had sheered away completely, displaying the remains of the staircase. No idea what state they're in now, though.

 

[Mrs Magpie]

Rebuilt, Housing Association.

 

[quimcunx]

Little people in a box - what who how??

'Ooh it just doesn't look natural in colour. I'm sticking to black and white.'

 

[Blagsta]

Walthamstow seems to have declined very quickly in a very short period of time. I can remember it being similar to how you describe it previously being as recently as the early-mid nineties. A lot of London has become very grubby and unpleasant in the last 10 years or so, it seems.

London's always been grubby.

 

[moon]

The Atlantic road is great, I can buy all my hair oils, Jamaican food, fish and music in in about 30mins have a quick chat with some cousins then jump on the train home.

Its Great!!

 

[Loupylou]

My old man cried when i took him back there as he said it was all broken.. he was born on Railton road in the 30's... I guess things were very different in Brixton back then..

I get sad looking at thoose particular buildings, neglected & crying out for a refurbishment, The Railway hotel is a pillar of demise...

Brixton needs an injection of cash just to keep these historic building intact before the whole lot crumbles down & a new glass structure is thrown up in its place....

So was my Dad ! but when he (first) went back in the 80s he couldn't believe the yuppification (of a Rd off Railton Rd) & how posh it was ! Also more integration between black and white people.
But then he lived there til the early 70s - it had already gone well down hill decades before then.
He used to play (Jazz) gigs in the Railway and all the other live music pubs in Brixton. Brixton's about live music and Lambeth Council are activally working against the history by letting this happen.

 

[Yossarian]

If you could catch a bus from Atlantic Road that would drop you off in 1955 how many of us would get on it?

In 1955, food rationing had only ended a year earlier - if someone from 1955 got on a bus to 2007 and saw the amount and variety of food on offer, they'd probably think they'd died and gone to some slightly shabby heaven.

 

[editor]

In 1955, food rationing had only ended a year earlier - if someone from 1955 got on a bus to 2007 and saw the amount and variety of food on offer, they'd probably think they'd died and gone to some slightly shabby heaven.

They'd also probably think they'd walked into some bizarre, fucked up future when they saw people throwing away so much food without regard.

 

[potential]

Brixton is a dump....





Brixton needs an injection of cash just to keep these historic building intact before the whole lot crumbles down & a new glass structure is thrown up in its place....

brixton is in a sorry state, but why are you saying it needs an injection of cash ?
brixton has had more grants, improvement cash injections than anywhere
its the people who make it shit, you can have an army of road sweepers but if the locals dont give a fuck, pissing in the street, muggers drug dealers.
give me brixton in the 50's any day, nice neigbours, hardly no crime.
if a shop owner cant even keep the outside clean, what do you think the store rooms where the food is kept looks like

 

[Brixton Hatter]

Being the obsessive type, I went out and photographed the exact same scene as the 1960s shot: http://www.urban75.org/brixton/history/atlantic7.html

great photos, though I fear that if you took a few in colour you'd see even more how crap the street is now!

Maybe this is something people want to take up via "Future Brixton" - the council's latest wheeze on regeneration & consultation. They want us to tell them how to improve Brixton - here's your chance. (The LBL website appears to be up the creek tho, so I cant find the link!)