The Knowhere Guide

Best and Worst in Brixton, Greater London*

Brixton, Greater London Triumphs and Tragedies

Favourite Building

• The Crypt
• The library
• Look up - Brixton was the place to go shopping early in the twentieth century so a lot of the buildings appeared in the 20s and 30s. Above the Woolworths ... beautiful Art Nouveau architecture
• the academy
• brixton academy
• Town Hall, the clock works! The library is a cool place to chill and read the papers.
• Saint Matthews Church, with the Bug Bar under and the club behind!
• St Matthew's Church (The Brix Complex), such an elegant building
• bobmarshes which has now been taken over buy two clothes shops and the new pub owned by the furkin breweries

Demolish It Now Building

• the whole of somerleighton estate
• the town hall
• the Mcdonalds
• not flattened, but please change the flooring inthe academy - when it gets hot, your feet tend to stick to the ground.
• The entire architectural element of Brixton with high explosive! (Demolition usually uses High explosive doesnt it?)

The Best Things

• Brixton market on a saturday there is people and music every step of the way. there is nowhere in the world your your find such a mix of culture, races, food and people and most are friendly and you will always find something to do.
• the buzz. the people.
• Very cheap fruit, veg and meat in the market(some butchers better than others though). Best mix of people of any place I know. Lots of healthie food places for the hippies amongst us.
• The buzz & the edge. The variety. Watching rich people & students make their nervous way down Coldharbour Lane to Living & to other places.
• You can buy a used travelcard for £1.50. Never too far from the public transport.
• the market - huge diversity of foods on sale, including pigs feet!
• Diversity The fact that theres still loads of people around at 2am or 4am due to the clubbing scene - makes it much safer than many areas New shops and redevelopment of the town centre at last
• The Multicultural International Global Village Vibe. The Creative energy that runs along the river Effra.
• The unique atmosphere in Brixton. The animation at the exit of the tube (the stupid and racist tribes of Saleem that just make you laugh!,...).
• Lively, unpredicatable nature of life Safety Brixton Cycles Lambeth Council - 5th lowest council tax in Britain and New Labour flagship borough Very good transport links
• A new gifts shop opened recently on the Clapham/Brixton border. Everything But The Kitschen Sink is a treasure trove of fun and innovative gift ideas. 50's pin ups and movie icons nuzzle with religious relics, nostalgic toys, cow cruet sets and fluffy table lamps. The shop is a suffusion of lurid colours, a fetish for trashy plastic and Andy Warhol-esque glamour.
• The Academy - brilliant venue.
• Brixton reacts to you as you do to it, grasshopper! Hey, you get what you give. The Fridge can be very impressive: keep an eye on Time Out for information. The Academy is uniquely beautiful. I've had some times there - as have so many Londoners! Worth a pilgrimage. The outskirts of Brixton are also pretty good, and pretty poor. Brockwell Park is a bit bleak now - but just wait 'till the summer! Go to the lido. Go to Pride - I can't think it'll be back in Victoria Park again in '96. A great festival for any sexuality. Check out Brixton Books www.page - books on epidemiology - I kid you not!
• The best thing about Brixton is the Fridge club. There is excellent music there on Saturday nights with a superb atmosphere - get youself there
• My brother says the best thing about Brixton is the market... I suppose he's got some use for cheap, knackered Duracell batteries that I haven't thought of.
• Brixton Exchange and Mart is a good source of second hand music stuff, although don't expect everything to have its serial number intact. It's sometimes quite hard to get served if the people in there are engaged in one of their interminable arguments with a big Rasta about the guitar he bought last week.
• Sports: Check out Frank Johnsons in Ferndale Road.
• The Ritzy: A great art house cinema in a newly renovated five screen high quality venue
• CoolTan Arts building has been bought by The Voice newspaper. The Ritzy Cinema is done up now - I went ages ago and saw Exorcist 1,2 & 3 (why?), and loads of other stuff: anyone been recently? I hear the prices have rocketed. [Perhaps, but still £3.00 concessions.] My mate Peter Polanyk lives off Coldharbour Road. That's a good thing about Brixton, at least. Check out Landor Road late at night for a surprise or two.
• Brixton is really beginning to buzz now with lots of nightlife and even the markets are looking better. Try glancing up at their entrances when walking along Coldharbour Lane or Electric Lane.

The Worst Things

• Going shopping with my mum cause it takes hours because your guarantied to bump into nuff people you know. all the mans selling drugs
• Brixton was hoorendous in the nineties - Lived there for a while in Bankton road vicious rapes, muggings, and hassle as soon as you were off the train - I don't care if it's 'trendy' who wants 'trandy' when it's so ugly and frightening, filthy and a place for every great unwashed in the world to doss. I am very hippy in my tendencies - but Brixton is vile - I pity the nice people who live there.
• crack and guns.
• I don't think its the kind of place you want to bring up your kids - I know cause i grew up there. Too many scumbags come into the area and sell hard drugs or buy them and the police do nuffink. And those little wannabee gangsters- stick 'em in the army for six months ( or better send 'em to Mosside or Granby in Toxteth, Liverpool where there are some REAL bad boys who don't need their mates to back them up when they're beating up on graphic designers/architects!)
• The Italians who live outside the tube station
• Walking up Coldhabour Lane alone late at night! Crime: my cousin was recently mugged by 2 kids in daylight across from a bus stop on Atlantic Road & no-one at the bus stop tried to help even though she was screaming her head off.
• All those people who used to "whizz by on their way to France" have now started moving there on mass and are trying to make the place their kind of sterile safe zone that they came from. go back to clapham or islington and stop pricing everybody out of the area and ruining it. Bring back the Squatters
• The really nice guy who used to regularly wank on my basement flat window!!
• Now you can't walk down the street with a spliff becos they'll take your gear, whereas before, they'd avoid you for fear of paper work overload.
• Drive by shootings People asking for your used travelcards at the tube station
• The Black youth that want to turn London into an LA Gang War Zone. This is not what their grandparents had in mind when they came here in the 50s
• The horrendously ugly scrapyards,slum alleys,uneccessary filth and mess,silly little VIctorian hovels nd general visual "ugliness" of the area as one coasts by in Eurostar to France. The menacing and intimidating violence in the neighbourhood ranging from riots to drive by shootings to muggings and just plain ol drunken common assaults.
• The Police sirens. Too much traffic. Not enough cool cafes. Wish there were more community creative spaces.
• No Sainsburys - but set to change soon Could do with more 'normal' pubs - presently there are only really very trendy places or dodgy locals
• Smell in the market - phew!
• The worst thing about Brixton is the junk shops, all of which interpret their name more literally than most of their ilk do. In five years of living there I have never seen anything worth buying. I wouldn't be at all surprised to see half a tin of catfood from a recent house clearance being sold as collectable in Brixton.

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Credits

Last updated: 2006-12-08