So I live in a part of Brisbane called Paddington. It's one of the inner west suburbs, about 15 minutes from the CBD. It has the most expensive Woolworths in the city, is 80% hills and populated mostly by that slightly less offensive creative-arts breed of yuppie and I AM IN LOVE WITH IT. Paddington is my favourite suburb.
So it has its downsides. It also has the most amazing strip of vintage and second-hand stores in Brisbane. The people who aren't arty yuppies are starving, angst-ridden musicians (like the ones I live with), black-clad hipsters, hippies (young and old) and bona fide crazy people. It's lush and leafy, and has all the good stuff - shopping, cafes, bars, the video store - sprinkled along the Latrobe Tce/Given Tce/Caxton St arterial line that runs along the ridge of a hill, with residential side streets dripping off it either side. The views of the city are marvellous. Even my house, which has no insulation, a Jungle Spider Kingdom for a backyard and is (I suspect) held together with dirt, has city views.
Across the road from me is Paddington Central, with Woollies, the chemist, a bottle shop, and a boy with a beautiful voice who plays acoustic guitar music every weekend morning. Buses to the city go every ten minutes. Sitting at the bus stop, I can watch the familiar characters go past: the impeccable young man, slender as a reed, always wearing suit trousers, a white shirt and a tie along with a resplendent blonde moustache, who cycles past every morning at ten without a helmet; the old man who puts a handkerchief on his head before he takes things out of bins; the two immensely fat Woolworths employees who lounge on the benches outside it eating icecream like a sideshow from the 30s.
Apparently Paddington used to be home solely to the starving artist/musician end of the population. My house is a throwback to that, I think (don't tell anyone but I think we have the cheapest rent in the suburb). Now the artists and musicians have grown up and found jobs designing advertising and producing jingles, and have brought their money and their adorable small dogs back to Paddo and mellowed it somewhat. The Paddington vibe is mellow.
What is it, do you think, that gives suburbs their vibe? A place like West End in Brisbane, the shaggier, hippier, more alternative cousin of Paddington feels remarkably different to the sleekness of the CBD, the moneyed middle-class studiousness of St Lucia or the vast grey expanses of Outer Bogansville.
Tell me about where you live. What do you love about it?
3 comments:
I don't know if you'd know the suburb I live in, but my favorite thing is the (fake) blond girl living opposite my room.
:)
I live in Belfast, on a street just off the lower end of the Falls Road, which is famous for its political murals and lots of violent history (see article about the Falls Curfew here).
I don't really like it much at all.
So I'm going to talk about Birkenhead (which, incidentally, I have much more experience living in also).
Now, just to clarify, when I say Birkenhead, I don't mean the English town across the way from Liverpool where Paul O'Grady/Lily Savage and Elvis Costello's family are from. They pronounce it something like "Berkhh-en-ed" (except instead of a hard 'k' sound, it's more like they're hacking a phlegm ball from the back of their throat at the same time) - similar to that anyway.
THIS is the Birkenhead I lived in for more than 20 years. Some say the area I lived in was too close to Birkdale to technically be Birkenhead anymore, and I was just being snobby - but I still stand by the fact the phonebook says my address is in Birkenhead (as do all the other official registrations of my home) so all the haters can suck on it.
(Though to be honest, even if I did live one street over, I would probably still try and claim I live in Birkenhead rather than Birkdale or, God forbid, Glenfield, because I am kind of a snob)
Anyway. Much like Paddington, most of Birkenhead offers city views (being just across the harbour from said-city). My house did not, being in a valley; however the top of my street boasted the highest point of the North Shore, and I have fond memories sitting on top of the water towers up there with my little brother, legs hanging over the side, eating fish & chips (throwing some chips at passing cars) and checking out the view.
It wasn't until I went to university across the water that I found out the rest of Auckland considered the North Shore to be full of rich snobs (and rich I am not - I always thought Ponsonby was reserved for that ilk of society).
My specific area in Birkenhead - specific right down to the lower section of my screet - has a primary school in it, so my whole home life has been filled with the sounds of children (also because I have three brothers and a childlike father). So it's a nice enough area to live in, even if I did get woken up on my days off uni by the sounds of the Mickey Mouse Club Arobecise being blasted from the school speakers as the kids had their morning P.E. class like some Disney cult.
The top of my street is handy enough for buses (the BTL bus station is right.there. However it isn't the major bus company that serves all of Auckland [Stagecoach] so the service isn't as good as in other areas. I like it though).
As Auckland sprawls, however, Birkenhead does too. So it really depends what area of Birkenhead you live in as to what your neighbours (and possibly you yourself) are like.
Birkenhead Pointers are the rich bastards that give the rest of us the bad reputation. Not to be confused with the canine club, the Birkenhead Pointers, these humans have too much money and spend most of it on furnishing and/or extending their fancy villas. Oh, and buying Landrovers (which obviously you're going to need when you live in suburbia).
Move closer to the Chelsea part of Birkenhead and you've got a big Asian enclave. They mostly keep to themselves. Though they too have lots of $$ in general.
The Northcote end of Birkenhead is heavy on the elderly, and stoners (possibly even elderly stoners); the Glenfield end has plenty of people who were on the dole for years, but now finally have a job somewhere and decided to move; and the Birkdale side has a lot of Maori and Pacific Island residents. Some who fit the stereotype, others who do not.
Birkenhead, at times, is filled with students who (and family of students who) go to Birkenhead College (which, ironically, is actually in Birkdale, and used to be named Birkdale College, but then they changed it 'cause they, too, are snobs. Unfortunately they cannot escape the harsh reality of their actual location). On the whole they can be militantly against anyone who (or is friendly with/related to anyone who) goes to Northcote College (actually in Northcote. But only just. The sign saying "Welcome to Birkenhead" is just across the road and up a bit).
This has resulted in a plentiful history of all kinds of rivalry (mostly sport-related) and it is very taboo for a student from one to date or even socialise with another. I'm just waiting for the crappy Shortland-Street-esque version of Romeo & Juliet surrounding that to come out. It'll happen.
It has its own mall! Highpoint. No, not this Highpoint, which is in VIC, and has the sense to have its own website. Then again, Oz's version of Highpoint is probably an actual mall, as opposed to Birkenhead's excuse for one, which is pretty much Countdown (supermarket) and The Warehouse (discount chain store somewhat akin to Wal*Mart) surrounded by a few boutique style stores, a sushi bar, and Burger King.
The foodcourt in this mall is the local hangout for Northcote College students. As aforementioned, the college is only just out of bounds of the Birkenhead area, so this mall is more local to them than it would be to the Birkenhead/Birkdale College students themselves. I am relatively sure the owner of that BK must sponsor Northcote College in some way, shape, or form, considering how much money its students spend there every day, of every week, of ever year since it opened. If not, they should.
As a result, many of the shops in the "mall" (again, mainly Countdown and The Warehouse) are primarily staffed with NC students (I myself was once a NC Countdown employee) which brings the community of one area into the community of another, in an odd, service-industry kind of way. Makes me see Northcoters as almost the Hispanics of LA. Interesting.
In any case, no matter the financial situation, I've always seen all Birkenheaders as relatively laid back. None of this hustle and bustle of the city folk. Sure there are parties every weekend (almost all of which are broken up by the po-po) where underage kids get absolutely hammered, and at least a couple will have unsafe sex and/or have to get their stomach pumped - but that's just student life in general, is it not?
In Birkenhead, if you're a teenager, that's your life. If you're an adult, you're either a soccer (well, rugby) mum, a teacher yourself, or a commuter of great distances in hideous Auckland traffic. Or you could own/help run one of the local boutiques. And let's face it, if you're a child, you pretty much live in your own world which doesn't extend much (in reality) beyond your back yard or the school playground.
So that's Birkenhead. Despite the volcanic landscape of Auckland making it near ridiculous to own a bicycle (unless you enjoy the painful death of your thigh/calf muscles) I liked it. It'd be a nice place to move back to one day. Though preferably with my own car.
I love that in Brisbane every gets this rich love and pure allegiance towards their suburb.
It becomes completely evident when those wondrous, little cheap houses are discovered and force their rent up (and up, and up and up)
Suddenly there is lots of ‘Oh I can’t move further west than Bardon – even Ashgrove is pushing it’
With that said I shall never leave Paddington. West End smells far too much like Patchouli
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