8 March 2015

Kick out the ads - Hoe Street hoardings


Hoe Street goes literally downhill from the market, heading north towards Forest Road. The buildings get smaller and smaller - three storeys by the old cinema, then progressively smaller two-storey shops until right at the end the buildings have a distinctly village-type scale. Last week I called it the fag-end of the Hoe Street, which isn't really fair, but the meandering line of little shops leads not to the village duckpond, but to the busy Bell Corner. A corner that deserves better than this array of scrolling advertisements. The slightly sinister bulk of the Hurricane Room pool hall doesn't help, but it's the oversize advertising hoardings that just say 'run-down' wherever they appear.


Notice the modest signwritten pointer to the William Morris gallery, dwarfed by the advert. 

Take a walk down, let's say, Upper Street in Islington, or visit on Streetview if you don't have time. You won't find a single hoarding in the entire stretch between Highbury Corner and the Angel. Which is as it should be. Now compare and contrast with a walk around Walthamstow.