A light in the darkness
As a child in the 1950s I lived on a busy High Street, and grew up accustomed to the daily noise generated by the shops lining the street, the Palace cinema next door, the Roebuck pub a few doors away, and the market on the next block. Daily Monday to Saturday in the daytime, that is; after 5.30 it was a lot quieter, with only pub and cinema customers coming and going, on foot, and after pub closing time, very quiet. (Sundays were quieter still. The still urban air was broken only by the St Barnabas bellringers calling the congregation to church. Between the changes, one could also hear, from a long way away, the approaching Boys’ Brigade band, marching echoingly along the deserted High Street to church service.)
It’s not like that now in the typical High Street. Not only is Sunday much like any other day of the week, but retail, commercial and leisure activity has extended from daytime into the night. Whether by popular demand, commercial opportunism, or government policy, we have moved some way towards the 24 hour city. Opinions vary on the virtues and utility of this, but on the whole I think our streets are better for having activity extended into more hours of the day. (Although I remain nostalgic for that empty 1950s High Street; always sunlit in my memory, with an imagined quality like a de Chirico piazza).
Parks are different. Whereas the street is legitimately a 24 hour space, the park traditionally has a clearly diurnal pattern, and is used only in daylight. Parks have enclosing fences, they may have gates, and if they are lucky enough to have a keeper, the gates may still be locked at dusk. The park at night is generally perceived as an unsafe place, where, if there is activity, it is nefarious and illicit, and maybe illegal. Both in fact and in imagination, the park at night is where murders take place. As I write, two teenagers have been given life sentences for the murder of a Goth in Stubbylee Park in Bacup. In film, an archetypal image of the park at night is still David Hemmings in Blowup, searching for the body in the shrubbery in Maryon Park, Woolwich, deserted and silent except for the wind soughing in the trees.
The Schools Secretary, Ed Balls, recently caused controversy when he proposed more night-time use of parks by children, including “midnight basketball” leagues, an idea imported from the USA. His motive, totally admirable, is to increase involvement in sports by children and to reduce obesity, but criticism was widespread, focussing on the established view of parks at night as locations of drug use and anti-social behaviour.
Our small local park, where I am Chair of the Friends, is making modest steps towards reclaiming the night. We have made a funding application to have floodlights installed on the all-weather playing pitch. In February we held our second annual “In the Park after Dark” event. Residents, particularly children, were invited to bring hand-held lights. Helium-filled balloons containing LED lights were tied to the railings. (Most got stolen, but that is perhaps a sort of appreciation). The local school designed, made and presented a spectacular back-lit puppet show in silhouette. Hot soup and baked potatoes were consumed. Fun was had. We hope that perceptions of the nocturnal park were changed, in a small but significant way.
Joe Holyoak
Endpiece, Urban Design, Summer 2008, Issue 107