Guard Bird

Back in January, I mentioned the possibility of Starbucks setting up shop on Stoke Newington Church Street. Although it now looks like that won't happen (mainly due to local protest), the building under question has been demolished.

There is a certain amount of anger about this as well, with people claiming that the much-unloved property owner, Richard Midda, first promised to leave the building intact, then promised to leave the facade intact, then demolished the entire thing. Now there are rumours that a Tesco will go into the ground-level space, and concerns that this signals the beginning of the end of Church Street's villagey, independent character. On a happier neighbourhood note, Bob and I have previously tried to get a good photo of this Church-Street inhabitant (always at the hardware shop, even when it's closed), but every time we walked by, his back was to the window. Today, he turned right around when I stopped to say hello and posed very nicely indeed: