london belongs to me

The serialization of Robbe-Grillet in his films and novels (and musically in the high modernism of Boulez) is related, at least superficially, to your Deleuzian Haringay Passage. The dissonance from the streets that flank it make the sense of rest and peace in the Passage far more enchanting when you get back to the Passage, but I don’t look yet for the differences in those streets, but only in each new difference in the Passage itself, how much foliage there is and the anticipation of yet more time spent in this sublime narrowness. You have managed with this one to produce something one will really look at over and over. And it really has the effect of being able to be enjoyed in artistic form, but to make you want to experience the physical place too. After a while I’ll start looking at Frobisher and Ducket and the others looking uphill and down, but it’s refreshing now to just want to get back to that wonderful semi-hiding place, the Haringay Passage; because that innocent phase when one discovers something new goes by too fast.

I’ll take your Haringay Passage all left alone—left alone except for the not entirely abnormal necessary urination from time to time, hell, I haven’t always been able to be above it; I hear we’re finally getting 20 new public toilets for all of Manhattan for a 2-year trial in a few months—any day over these ‘conceptual works’ that ‘Christo’s progeny’ have put in the Queens Wood. Well, the Queens Wood does not need anybody coming in to improve it unless there needs to be some soda bottles picked up. I’m very bourgeois about parks and don’t think they need any ornament except things like the endearing little plaster child by the pool that realize that the Park is what gives them permission and life. Any art put in a cool green oasis ought not to call attention to itself but rather to the Park itself.

In fact, the urination is at least an organic response by real people (if perhaps somewhat uncouth like me) to the breathtaking perfection of the Passage: if I manage to get back to London in May I’d never miss going to that Passage now that I know about it, as it’s one of the most beautiful places, just unique, just pure, consummate art in itself, somehow having found itself made over the centuries—and yet still with a sense of secrecy about it. I’d prefer it without the urination, but I still think the urination is conceptual art that works within a leafy beauty—and I’m sure it’s not in every segment of the Passage. This unwelcome urination is still better conceptual art than any of those wrappings and huge hanging bags. Outdoor art is better if it is all clumped together in a park all its own, with other outdoor works—or in man-made parts of cities, especially when the buildings have gone a bit to seed. If it is then overlooking a beautiful setting—as Socrates Sculpture Park in Queens hangs over a rockface on the East River and you see Manhattan looking truly handsome on a clear October day—then well and good. You were talking about the awful guy being parasitic to the fascinating and truly flesh-and-blood Tom the Cabbie--Tom is someone who possesses an enviable inner map of London and so is a kind of truly noble poet of the city: this was wonderful lore he told at the café and then told you some more, but you ought not to shy away from getting some tea at the window. Well, anyway, I think wrapping trees is parasitism too. But Tom’s ‘map of London’ is the same kind of priceless thing as the slow proliferation of Haringay Passage over long years. We have only the much smaller Charles Lane in the West Village, and they’ve even begun to encroach on that.

(I meant 'John the cabbie,' of course. Sorry)

Regarding no-one knowing the variety of versions to the name Harringay, here is the answer:

Harringay is an actual place within the London Borough of Haringey. Because of this, there's great confusion about Harringay, even among the people that live there. Some of them are so confused that they don't even know that they're living in Harringay.

How the Harringay/Haringey Problem Started

Harringay existed quite happily and quietly in North London, between Finsbury Park and Wood Green, right up until 1965. Then local government in London was re-organised, and it was decided to create a new borough by combining Hornsey (which Harringay was part of), Wood Green and Tottenham. For reasons lost in the mists of time, they decided to call it Haringey. Theories abound as to why the spelling changed - maybe it was because 'gay' had come to mean something quite different by the 1960s, maybe they wanted the new borough to have a different name to any existing place, or perhaps they just couldn't spell.

Extract from
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A842942

The difference between the names came about the same way as many place names - there was no standard way of spelling most words till 18th or 19th centuries - many place names were afffected.

In fact Harringay, Haringey and Hornsey all have their origins by way of a local Saxon Chief called Haering. All three names are a corrption of Haering's Hege or Haering's enclosure. THe name Harringay became prominent due to the name of a large local housr, Harringay Park House, which stood at the site at the top of present day Hewitt & Allison Roads till the early 1880s. THe name Haringey was adopted as the name of the local Borough in 1965 to avoid confusion with the local area Harringay - real success that one then!

he he. i saw my house

I lived in Beresford Road for 10 years and recently moved away and since i miss all that is the ladder passage it was nice to have another glimpse!!!

'Green Lanes is not pleasant..'

I couldn't agree less, although I agree with you on it being alive.
I lived there for two years and it's the safest place I've ever lived in London, despite all the inter-gang fighting.
You feel safe there 24 hours, because of the shops and restaurants being open all the time.

I think it's fair to say that by contemporary standards of what constitute 'pleasant' it doesn't come under that category: more of an indictment of the former than the latter though...

I love the haringey ladder! In its present state its very urban, bit scary but very interesting creeping right through the middle of all those streets. Its a very unique set-up and doesn't get the credit it deserves.

Was searching for info on the area of wood green (I've lived here all my life) and yet seem to know little of the history. And googled upon this gem of a site!

Loving the photography, and information here. I often think Wood Green is the buffer between the leafy wonders of Crouch End and Muswell Hill and the sprawl of Tottenham. But you can wander of Green Lanes and suddenly find yourself in a very different, quite place. I love it!

I lived on Duckett Road when I was a child in 1936 and was there through the war. I moved out and came to Canada in 1957 because I was fed up with the hole. London is a crappy place to live period, and quite I frankly I can't see what the hell you are are raving about that dump for.

The so called Haringay Passage is just an alleyway.

There's something wrong with a guy who can find his idea of heaven in a stinking urinal.

If he thinks that's heaven he obviously doesn't get out too much.