east london POLL (ends may 25)

at least six of these postcodes are thoroughly awesome

i prefer to leave the lead district out of these, but e1 will have serious competition here, so i've left it in.

i voted e5, i like clapton a lot. other are good too. im kinda fascinated by plaistow, i should go there one day

i forgot to add canning town

Yeah, I call shennanigans on this "leaving E1 in" thing.

Shame on you, Gareth.

Plaistow...really not a lot there but nice to follow the Greenway

i must go back up Beckton Alp

Walthamstow because it's the only part of East London (a) I know in depth and (b) feel comfortable in.

E1 should be in - it doesn't feel as 'central' as W1, N1 or NW1. i do think of Aldgate as the old gateway to the East and where E really begins.

I don't care about postcodes. I want to vote for the Lea Valley: Walthamstow Marshes, Hackney Marshes, Three Mills, etc.

i know its hard. i want to vote for many places too. i wanted to vote for los angeles, but it wasnt on there. i wanted to take today off. i want to fuck the girl that sat opposite to me on the tube today. i want an ice cream

You can have all of those things and more, just let me vote for the green bits.

what's ratcliff?

E2 was my first London home, so it will always be a bit special, and gets my vote for that.

Plaistow - my first home. Also the last place my parents paid rent before they went mad and bought a house in Benfleet. Go East they said and we did.

E1 is hard to beat though.

i'm wit' Wiley - Bow E3 inna houze.

um, except they all hate me and mugged me outside my front door.

"poshest cockney ever" a stand-up said to me once. hard to fight...

That'll teach you to live in Bow.

what's ratcliff?

He's has a nightly Radio 2 show with makoni.

I picked E4 because it's closest to where my friend lives (N18)

E8 has the greatest chip shop.

I had fucking lousy chips in E17 last week. Don't go the Mauritian place on Hoe St near the tube, it sucks.

E17 has v good doner kebab (using naan bread).

N4 has the best kebabs, though.

But I know that doesn't count just now.

actually i don't know why i picked E3 - i've lived there for a year but it's pretty rum all round - there's certainly close to fuck-all to do there.

E2, on the other hand...Roman Road? Bethnal Green? Victoria Park? Enough decent pubs to satisfy the most ardent dipsomaniac? The Buddhist Centre? York Hall? Marvellous.

E2 also gives up the Vietnamese food, Redchurch Street, the Boundary Estate, Hackney City Farm, Broadway Market, galleries on Vyner Street and Bistrotheque. Winnah!

sorry to be 'that guy' but Broadway Market actually in E8. there's the Museum Of CHildhood, a great stretch of Regents Canal, the Geffrye museum, Pellici's classic caff and, uh, some gas works to add to the E2 thrills tho

OK confused by friends who lived in warehouse flat next to gasometers on the other side of the canal. Will swap this markets for one Columbia Road but I hates the pram action.

I voted for E1 because of so many good Whitechapel memories, but I'm becoming a Bow convert as well. E3 is so much lovelier than grime records would have you believe!

aye, some good e1 memories, done a bit of a 180 on e3;)

i would like to rep for e14. i love nighttime walks around deserted monolithic canary wharf

also the scene of one of my greatest triumphs as a person

is that when you managed to play air guitar to 'i predict a riot' on your ipod for the entire length of the song without anybody noticing?

no that was e12

i don't think i've ever been to e12. unless i ended up there when i fell asleep on the 25 once.

there was that time you were out with tuomas and the pinefox on wanstead flats and you fell to the ground and you forgot to stick out your hands to break your fall. all the cds that came flying out of your pocket crossed the boundary into E12. tuomas was horrified and said people dont fall to the ground in finland why do they fall to the ground here, and pinfox was frightened by the shiny silver discs and ran off to pen a letter to david lloyd george warning him of the imminent danger

I don't understand East London at all.

The bus routes are totally confusing. I was trying to get to Hackney Wick last night, got on a 48 by mistake, saw a sign to Bethnal Green, fell into a daze, then woke up and found myself in Hackney Central and very lost somewhere around the back of M&S! I had to ring my friend to get directions out of there!

hackney having to share the title with surprise joint winner walthamstow. bethnal green stalling badly, whitechapel and clapton disappointing as well.

Celebreate E8 victory Afterworker-style next week, G.

IN YOUR FACE!

E16 is the worst place in the world.

Would like to report that the place in E17 that does the great kebabs in naan bread is in fact the same place I said upthread to avoid cos their chips are gross! So I retract that and say DO go to the Mauritian place on Hoe St, just don't eat the chips.

I *THINK* I've walked through at least 3/4 of these today

call it 1/2

they're all lovely

Did you go through E11 because that is very likely one of the places I will be sending you on your assignment.

i want to know more about shadwell and stepney

Shadwell and Stepney are basically Whitechapel - apart from Bethnal Green that's my favourite bit of East London.

i forgot to add canning town

Surely this is the worst bit?

Whitechapel feels v dirty to me, not a big fan.

I tend to assume all of East London is a bit on the dirty side, the exception being Canary Wharf and that gentrified hellhole round London Fields.

To my knowledge Whitechapel has no good pubs though which is kind of a mark against it.

the good samaritan near the royal london hospital is ok

gentrified hellhole around london fields = dalston?

i also want to know more about hackney wick - it seems like that's where all the artists have moved to, having been priced out of dalston/london fields?

i just moved near the small tesco on well st and i have to say that well st is awesome. it's a real neighborhood. before i was off mare street which was very anonymous, transient, etc, which is cool in some respects but now i already know the people living on either side of me, have seen them in the park. there's a hardware store, a butcher, a greengrocer that's open til 2sm that makes its own flatbread and has a bunch of lamb parts in the back. there's an old-fashioned health food store with a window so dusty you can barely tell it's there from the street. and lots of older dudes just hanging on the sidewalk, gabbing. i thought i wanted to live on chatsworth road but actually i realise this is what i wanted. chatsworth road feels very.. exposed and windblown in comparison.

my local is the kenton arms. i haven't been there but i've heard it's good.

Wanstead and points beyond are extremely nice

Haha I meant Broadway Market really, Dalston may be many things but I'd never accuse it of not being dirty. I quite like dirty though, really clean urban landscapes feel weird.

Hackney Wick is kind of great, it's got this weird 'end of the world' feel to it. Not surprised it's full of artists because it kind of feels like frontier town.

yeah i really like hackney wick! matt's right it's all warehouses and industrialness

hmm maybe i wouldn't like to live there. sounds like ideal house party country though

Only the sort of house parties where going home isn't on the agenda.

before i was off mare street which was very anonymous, transient, etc, which is cool in some respects but now i already know the people living on either side of me

i was so much happier not knowing the people living on either side of me - didn't know them at any point when i lived in dalston, but i know them both in holloway and i HATE THEM ALL SO MUCH

fucking STUDENTS die die die

most inane people ever

worst taste in music too

Is the sausage man still there?

nah he hasn't been back, i was never as bothered by him as gareth was though. i find it easier to tell people to just fuck off.

Used to spend a lot of time in Hackey Wick when half of Shimura Curves lived there. It *feels* like the ends of the earth (especially when you miss the last bus back to civilisation) but the weird thing is, those times I did miss the bus and had to stay over, going into work the next morning took much less time than commuting from Streatham.

But a lot of Hackney is like that. It's physically close, but just feels remote because it's so hard to get there.

i did snap the other day at the student neighbours and yell out of the window to turn their fucking shit music off. it worked!

honestly the domestic violence couple on the other side are so much more preferable. i wish i could set them on the students tbh.

This is in Holloway, lex?

it's a bit holloway, a bit highbury, a bit finsbury park. i'm still not sure what exact locale i actually live in.

No-one is, round there

on one side of me is a family w/two kids, both parents on the dole, dad a str8-up geezah - other side is a former CBS radio journalist, his actress wife and their 5-y.o. - hackney, baby! so far i've helped tie down the dropcloth on the first neighbors' car (while the father was in hospital for a collapsed lung??!) and watered the second neighbors' plants

i have also seen a tall young able-bodied man strutting down the pavement with a gigantic shiny KNIFE in his hand and bellowing at the top of his lungs to anyone who came near. first time in my life i thing i actually called the police on somebody.

It's right by the Emirates isn't it? I think of that as Holloway really but I wouldn't go and hang out round there if you paid me.

It's right by the Emirates isn't it?

Quiet neighbourhood

it's a really nice neighbourhood apart from our specific neighbours

(also finsbury park junction is so grim, i think i hate it cuz my run takes me through it and it's so polluted and gross that i want to die every time)

i don't know what's happened, i haven't seen any football fans around for a while now. b/c of the world cup?

The club's gone bankrupt, there probably won't be any more football fans.

really?! wow :D

I live near the Emirates (the stadium that is) and it's quite nice really, though I don't exactly hang out there much. Comically multicultural area, even by London standards.

Everyone likes their own street but globe road in b green is seriously amazing. Really good atmosphere and v neighbourly...

That is a great road (and one of the apartment blocks is named after my ancestors).

Did you go through E11 because that is very likely one of the places I will be sending you on your assignment.

No! I visited every District Line station in between and including Upminster and Embankment, though. Pics on my Facebook. This time, I was accompanied.

(for half the journey, I was accompanied by a couple who are getting married in 3 weeks - talk about a warm-up)

Oh and Lex, you live in DRAYTON PARK.

My grandparents always lived in the same street as Homerton Station, spent so much of my childhood kicking up and down there, going to Mare Street to buy comics and sweets etc. Should go back and revisit one day. All the relatives on that side of things live in poxy Chingford now though.

http://deadpubs.co.uk/LondonPubs/Hackney/Alma.jpg

^ they used to live opposite this fine establishment but I think that pub has now died and gone to pub heaven

In shocking East London pub heaven news, the Bakers Arms is now a Paddy Powers. What are they going to call that area now?

Paddy Powers, Paddy Powers
Bakers Arms

Which one Suzy?

Hmmm, would've thought Hackney would be a shoe-in.