Covent Garden London
The heart of London's West End
A Hurray and two prayers
An invitation to reflect on the 'early days' of the CGCA and the last 30 years in 250 words is, of course, impossible. I came to Covent Garden in 1963 to see a friend, saw a "To Let" board on the building opposite and thought "this looks a good central place" and moved my embryonic import business to Neal Street.
Two years later I moved in to live 'over the shop'. Thirty-five years later, having glanced at leafier areas of London, I will leave my simply converted 'loft living' to somewhere with a lift to spend the next 30 years. But still in Covent Garden and in spite of all the irritations of centre city living, I cannot realistically imagine living elsewhere.
Back in the 60's my patch was dominated by print and publishing even more than the Market. Odhams' presses rolled, delivery vans roared around, hot-type clacked in Earlham Street, journalists drank in The Cross Keys until the Market activity began. People enjoyed coming here. They still do.
Very early on, in the queue at the local butchers waiting for sausages, I observed Dennis Portwine, father of Graham, who now gently rules the place, leaning towards a diminutive ancient lady saying, "Yes, Alice. A small lamb chop and a slice of liver for the cat?". Until that moment I had never been ambitious (I just got on with things) but my ambition then became to belong sufficiently here for the butcher to call me by my Christian name.
I have worn many hats: importer from far flung places, retailer of oriental-ethnic goods, specialist purveyor of fine teas, florist of the first modern style flower shop, restaurateur, café owner, gallery entrepreneur with 100's of shows over 15-20 years and, I suppose, property developer.
In the early 70's I became aware of the GLC plan for Covent Garden, became politicised, made an Objection at the Public Inquiry and spent innumerable evenings at meetings for the CGCA and the Covent Garden Forum. The CGCA's first Administrator started work in my flat and the "Independent News" in the basement of what became my first retail shop and the first new style shop in Covent Garden. Friends said "Retail in Covent Garden? You must be mad. No-one will come".
From the early 70's I took over other buildings - because "it seemed a good idea at the time" - and converted the upper parts to residential, the middle to commercial (favouring small users) with own shops on the ground floor.
The 90's saw difficult times in the recession, although I believe earlier, less severe recessions helped Covent Garden because it took the pressure off - a bit. But many businesses went under or moved.
During all this time - which latterly included time as Trustee of the Covent Garden Area Trust, The Monument Committee and The Social Centre, and a Board Member of the Donmar Theatre and The Ambassador Theatre
Group - I have tried to mediate between the often conflicting interests of residents and business - including developers. Now may be the time to try harder on this one, as many more concerns are now shared.
Finally, a hurrah and two prayers:
HURRAH for INDEPENDENTS. May enlightened Landlords give them a chance to flourish. Fewer have gone bust or moved than chains/flagships/multi-nationals who now drive rents to absurd levels (this year Benneton wanted to pay £800,000 p.a. for Neal Street East's space).
PRAYER 1: that Covent Garden, and like communities, get more of the free or affordable things such as: trees, unbroken paving stones, visitors that are quiet and continent after 11.00 pm, legal ice cream vans, angelic scaffolders (and never on Sunday), good new buildings that get built, É etc etc etc.
PRAYER 2: that the new Community Centre gets built without (further) delay and that it may prove a forum where residents and workers discover they have more in common than previously thought.
Christina Smith
Covent Garden Community Association Annual Report 2000-2001
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