|
|
 |
| |
Plans are afoot to rename Archway station |
Next stop South Highgate, alight here for Marx Square
NEW moves are being made this week to re-name Archway Tube
station ‘South Highgate’ and call its run-down shopping
mall Karl Marx Square.
The plan is to re-brand Archway, with its grim tower and traffic
island, in the hope of encouraging tourists and inspiring regeneration.
Under the proposal, re-naming the Tube station ‘South Highgate’
would link it to its upmarket neighbour. The mall would contain
a Marx museum, coffee shops and a signposted “communist”
walk to nearby Highgate cemetery, where the 19th-century philosopher
is buried. Marx lived in Kentish Town from 1856 until his death
in 1883.
Architect Chris Roche, chairman of Junction Road Residents and
Traders Association, thought up the re-branding idea, which
he believes might be a less-disruptive alternative to Islington
Council’s proposed redevelopment of Archway’s wind-swept
shopping mall.
He said that “a simple re-branding exercise would probably
do the trick”.
He added: “Archway is unfortunately synonymous with urban
blight. Call it South Highgate and you will get re-investment,
organic growth and, overnight, property values will go up.
“You won’t need the kind of wholesale upheaval that
is envisaged by the council’s development plans for the
area.”
Mr Roche believes the area’s association with Karl Marx
and Dick Whittington, who is reputed to have stopped to rest
on Highgate Hill, should be exploited.
He said: “So let’s have a Marx museum in the shopping
mall and a Das Kapital coffee shop.”
But Better Archway Forum member Amy Silverston said: “On
one hand, he wants gentrification by changing Archway to South
Highgate.
“On the other, he wants to celebrate one of the world’s
great left-wing thinkers, who fought for the rights of the working
classes. I wonder if these two ideas are a bit of a contradiction.”
Highgate Society spokesman Adrian Betham said: “Calling
a place somewhere south is confusing. Archway has an identifiable
name and people should be proud of it.” |
|
|
|
