Next to Dalston Junction, on Dalston Lane, Hackney, London, stand two Georgian houses dating from 1820. The adjacent building is currently occupied by the group Everything4Everyone but is facing imminent eviction – and demolition. At the time of writing this report there is still no sign of the bailiffs, but helicopters fly over the buildings at all times, and cctv cameras pointing right at us.
The buildings, which we have come to know as “the theatre”, are among the earliest ever built in the Lane and are listed by the Hackney Council as having special character and interest.
Despite of this, they want to demolish them. The reason? There is a state-of-the-art underground station planned to be built right next to it. Speculation in the area has rocketed, and it will continue to increase as the date of the actual building of the station approaches. Add to this the London Olympics to be celebrated down the road and you get most of the picture.
The local residents do not want a state-of-the-art business or commercial centre being built in the form of boxes, as the council has publicised in their flyers. These wishes of the local community have been ignored, silenced even, like when on that public council meeting where attendance by the public was in theory permitted, and the people who wanted to attend were denied entry.
When people are denied the right to influence the decisions of the “democratic” that are in theory representing them, and when they are met with police force when they are trying to make their voice heard, they are left with roughly two only possible paths.
One possible option is to turn to the courts and seek to make the public institutions at least respect their own laws and guidelines. The environmental & community action company, Organisation for Promotion of Environmental Needs Limited, OPEN, took this path. But one needs economical means for legal representation and advice, which is not available for free when a public building is threatened with demolition even against the will of the local residents. (definition of public was not that it belongs to the public, i.e. every one?)
The other option is to go and occupy the premises to avoid such demolition. This is what Everything4Everyone did.
We entered the building the night before the council squad was planning to enter the building to make the last preparations for demolition. They came on the morning morning, only to find that the theatre and adjacent buildings had been squatted. They did two things: they chased the squatters with their constructions tools until they had to escape to the roof, and they took us to court – but not to the county court where usually Interim Possession Orders are issued – they went to the High Court. The difference would have been that, if the court had accepted the case and we had resisted the eviction, we would have faced 6 months sentences. But the court didn't accept the case, and the council officers managed to book a slot in the county court for 2 days after this – a very unusual thing to get too.
In the meantime, we repaired the building we had secured, rebuilding the stair case that the council had destroyed in order to make the building uninhabitable, and other general repairs.
For two weeks one of us stayed on the roof of the Theatre, hoping to re-enter the building, but eventually we decided that it was better to concentrate in the daily and weekly activities. We have hosted Food Not Bombs events, where food is given out for free to passers by, guerrilla screenings at the square opposite, guerrilla gardening, samba band sessions on the streets, community film screenings... and, every Friday, we have been organising a cafe together with open mic sessions. People would just turn up with their instruments and mates and sign one after the other; some of them came from as far away as the USA...
And the final injunction that prevented the council from demolishing the buildings ran out. Dalston Theatre was never short of people bringing food or tools – I will never forget the couple that came one day. We were pretty suspicious – who are they? What do they want? They had never before been to a squat, they were curious about everything we had to say, and then they left. They said they would come back, but then every one says that... but back they came, after about half an hour. They were bringing with them lots of food, buckets, plates... I thought it was their personal shopping and wondered why they had stopped by with all that load. But it was all for us! They were things they had observed we needed and we were dramatically short of. Since we alerted the indymedia website of the imminent eviction, the response was massive, like every time an occupied social centre is under threat I guess. We had a special night of celebration on Friday 20 October beginning in the square opposite with activities for kids, a bike repair and a samba workshop, and ending inside the theatre itself with an open mic jam session and community cinema.
But then this morning at about 4.30am the cops came to evict us, and well, we had already decided to move on. In fact we had already decided to go an occupy another space back in January, when we lost the court case. So, see you in the next social centre...
We would like to remind people that resistance happens every day, not just with every eviction, not even with every occupation, in our everyday lives.
The buildings, which we have come to know as “the theatre”, are among the earliest ever built in the Lane and are listed by the Hackney Council as having special character and interest.
Despite of this, they want to demolish them. The reason? There is a state-of-the-art underground station planned to be built right next to it. Speculation in the area has rocketed, and it will continue to increase as the date of the actual building of the station approaches. Add to this the London Olympics to be celebrated down the road and you get most of the picture.
The local residents do not want a state-of-the-art business or commercial centre being built in the form of boxes, as the council has publicised in their flyers. These wishes of the local community have been ignored, silenced even, like when on that public council meeting where attendance by the public was in theory permitted, and the people who wanted to attend were denied entry.
When people are denied the right to influence the decisions of the “democratic” that are in theory representing them, and when they are met with police force when they are trying to make their voice heard, they are left with roughly two only possible paths.
One possible option is to turn to the courts and seek to make the public institutions at least respect their own laws and guidelines. The environmental & community action company, Organisation for Promotion of Environmental Needs Limited, OPEN, took this path. But one needs economical means for legal representation and advice, which is not available for free when a public building is threatened with demolition even against the will of the local residents. (definition of public was not that it belongs to the public, i.e. every one?)
The other option is to go and occupy the premises to avoid such demolition. This is what Everything4Everyone did.
We entered the building the night before the council squad was planning to enter the building to make the last preparations for demolition. They came on the morning morning, only to find that the theatre and adjacent buildings had been squatted. They did two things: they chased the squatters with their constructions tools until they had to escape to the roof, and they took us to court – but not to the county court where usually Interim Possession Orders are issued – they went to the High Court. The difference would have been that, if the court had accepted the case and we had resisted the eviction, we would have faced 6 months sentences. But the court didn't accept the case, and the council officers managed to book a slot in the county court for 2 days after this – a very unusual thing to get too.
In the meantime, we repaired the building we had secured, rebuilding the stair case that the council had destroyed in order to make the building uninhabitable, and other general repairs.
For two weeks one of us stayed on the roof of the Theatre, hoping to re-enter the building, but eventually we decided that it was better to concentrate in the daily and weekly activities. We have hosted Food Not Bombs events, where food is given out for free to passers by, guerrilla screenings at the square opposite, guerrilla gardening, samba band sessions on the streets, community film screenings... and, every Friday, we have been organising a cafe together with open mic sessions. People would just turn up with their instruments and mates and sign one after the other; some of them came from as far away as the USA...
And the final injunction that prevented the council from demolishing the buildings ran out. Dalston Theatre was never short of people bringing food or tools – I will never forget the couple that came one day. We were pretty suspicious – who are they? What do they want? They had never before been to a squat, they were curious about everything we had to say, and then they left. They said they would come back, but then every one says that... but back they came, after about half an hour. They were bringing with them lots of food, buckets, plates... I thought it was their personal shopping and wondered why they had stopped by with all that load. But it was all for us! They were things they had observed we needed and we were dramatically short of. Since we alerted the indymedia website of the imminent eviction, the response was massive, like every time an occupied social centre is under threat I guess. We had a special night of celebration on Friday 20 October beginning in the square opposite with activities for kids, a bike repair and a samba workshop, and ending inside the theatre itself with an open mic jam session and community cinema.
But then this morning at about 4.30am the cops came to evict us, and well, we had already decided to move on. In fact we had already decided to go an occupy another space back in January, when we lost the court case. So, see you in the next social centre...
We would like to remind people that resistance happens every day, not just with every eviction, not even with every occupation, in our everyday lives.
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