Locations

DINGLE

GRANBY

LODGE LANE

Stories

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1:1 PLUG IN WORKSHOP
WITH ARCHITECTURE STUDENTS FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF EAST LONDON
16.-20. FEB. 2008

"Dealing with teenage agression" `
Project by Georgios Smyrlis

"Shared culture"
Project by Emiko Hamada

"Light machine - to illuminate street art"
Project by Gianpaolo Francescini

LIVERPOOL CHILDRENS FESTIVAL
WEBPAGE LAUNCH + exhibition
INFO: www.liverpoolchildrensfestival.org.uk
16. JAN. 2008

The Greenhouse Project launched the Liverpool Childrens Festival webpage with an exhibiton in the OUT-POST.

SHRINKING CITIES EXHIBITION
INFO: www.shrinkingcities.com
15. NOV. 2007 -26. Jan. 2008
OUTPOST: Dingle, Granby, Lodge Lane

The OUT-POST programme started with the Shrinking Cities exhibition at the Site Gallery and Renew Rooms in November 2007. The exhibition is extended beyond the gallery space to the inner city neighbourhoods and spaces that have become the focus of the global discourse on Shrinking Cities. The OUT-POST will travel between three Toxteth neighbourhoods to display information and become a canvas for the collection of stories from those areas.

OUT-POST Locations and dates:

16.11.07 - 09.12.07 Park St., Dingle
10.12.07 - 22.02.08 Lodge Lane
23. 02.08 - Granby Street

SIT IN EXHIBITION
SIT IN INFO
15. NOV. 2007 -19. FEB. 2008
During the SIT IN event between the 12th and 19th August 2006, 52 households from the Lodge Lane area occupied a vacant site on Noel Street with garden benches. SIT IN started with the question: What if these large areas of derelict and neglected land that characterise Toxteth could be utilised by local communities and become an asset rather than a space that divides neighbourhoods. The benches in combination with an information/storage wall facilitated various activities fostering communication and debate. In October 2006 the Noel Street Green Residents Association was formed by SIT IN participants.

SIT IN on Noel Street Green.Read more

LODGE LANE PAST:

Lodge Lane was really well developed in those days; Victorian and Edwardian shops, a music hall called the Pavilion (Pivvy), public library, churches, chapels, a swimming bath and ‘wash house’; it seemed there was a pub on every street corner. Fishmongers, fruit and veg shops, coffee shops, cake shops, toy shops and clothes shops; all made up the typical high street.

Liverpool’s Real Cultural Quarter
In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s I have recollections of Toxteth as real place of many different cultures. My father was a boxing manager and pet shop owner and over the years he kept small shops off Park Road, Smithdown Lane, Tunnel Road and Lodge Lane.
Around me I saw the large Georgian houses and tree lined streets at there best. But I also saw comprehensive demolitions and re-building with a variety of council housing solutions of the 1960’s including a 22 story tower block called Entwistle Heights.
My father helped in the migration of many West African boxers to Liverpool; I met and made friends with these young men as they settled into Toxteth. At the same time many other migrants were coming into Toxteth, as seamen, from East Africa, Somalia and Ethiopia.

Urban Riots
In 1981 my father defended his pet shop on Lodge Lane from Rioters. The animals were rescued and taken to a safe haven in Longfellow Street. The police swept along Lodge Lane, with shields and batons and curfew was the order of the night.
The urban riots (or disturbances), which took place on Upper Parliament Street and Lodge Lane, brought worldwide media attention to Toxteth. The cultural oven and atmosphere resulted in a summer of fighting between inhabitants and the local police force that also had resonances in Brixton and the St Pails area of Bristol. Toxteth and Watts became twin cities !
In terms of policing, public order and in the eyes of the media Toxteth became a ‘no go area’; perhaps even a ghetto associated with drugs, guns, high unemployment, restricted educational opportunities (how many doctors or teaching come from Toxteth ?) and poor health standards. Increasingly, Toxteth has become disconnected from the rest of Liverpool and the implications of shrinkage are clear and visible for all those with eyes to see.

text by Robert Mc Donald