Comment: Rediscovering your cool street
Time Out has recently judged a local road near my home in North London as one of the coolest streets in the world, which has prompted me to reappraise this thoroughfare that I’ve passed along almost weekly for the past 25-plus years.
Blackstock Road in London’s N4 postcode finds itself on a list of 31 streets selected from around the world – from Porto to Buenos Aires, Cape Town and beyond that are deemed to have that most valuable characteristic – authenticity. They are not major roads with the same old high street megastores and generic coffee shops. These are neighbourhood backstreets and lively avenues that locals appreciate. They are places full of independent shops and quirky bars alongside old-school grocery stores and rough-and-ready pubs.
For a period in the mid-1990s I lived on Blackstock Road, although it was very close to Highbury Park so I used to say I lived on the latter road because the former was a bit rough around the edges. But it did have The Bank of Friendship Pub opposite my flat so there were upsides to calling it home for a couple of years.
Over the years it has undoubtedly changed but as with all things you see pretty much every day you fail to spot the long-term seismic changes. Incremental changes go largely unnoticed. I’m sure this is the case for many high streets around the UK that we visit regularly. Undoubtedly many will have taken a turn for the worse over recent years but there will be many more that have been reinvigorated by an influx of independent stores.
Subscribe to TRBMaybe the changes have taken place without us noticing. If this is the case then we need to open our eyes a bit more and recognise that there are many high streets up and down the country that have unique characteristics and interesting shops and hospitality operators that more than justify our support.
Time Out highlighted some of the traders on the one kilometre stretch of Blackstock Road that I’d not been aware of and others that I must make the effort to visit having simply passed them on my bike in the past far too many times. The old-school boozer The King’s Arms is now on my hit list along with second-hand charity bookshop House of Hodge and also independent grocer Nourished Communities.
In reality I’ve probably used Blackstock Road more than I’m giving myself credit for because I’m a frequent visitor to Fish & Cook Stationers. When it looked like they would not survive much beyond Covid-19 I bought a mountain of A4 pads and other items ahead of the stated closing date. This date never came and I’m pleased to say they are still trading today and I’m gradually going through the pile of note pads. I’ve also enjoyed a number of excellent meals at Italian Little Sardegna that serves homemade Sardinian specialities, Thai restaurant Farang – that is a truly fiery affair – and coffee in Blighty café.
I could go on about other haunts of mine on this largely unassuming road in North London but better you go out and explore your own local areas because you will also hopefully have local roads that maybe need rediscovering for those hidden gems that combine to make a cool street.
