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ellarienI'm in Birmingham today, my second home, but the post I composed over the weekend is about Sheffield, my native city.
The city is full of flowers: baskets of petunias and impatiens and lobelia balance from every railing, dangle from every archway and overhang; narrow beds of scarlet geraniums run down the middle of dual carriageways; two figures sculpted in houseleeks stand outside the Town Hall. Sheffield in Bloom, the signs say proudly, and this year, with even more pride, Representing Britain in Entente Florale. The judging for that was in July, but the flowers are still there. The other morning, as the bus turned a corner, I spotted a mid-road display of autumn crocuses, as big as tulips and delicately, luminously mauve, their shape lifting the heart as if with the promise of spring.
And my heart lifted, and I realized, quite suddenly, that I have a good feeling about Sheffield, this summer.
I loved Sheffield when I was growing up here. It's a city of half a million, nestling in a knot of valleys among hills on the edge of the Peak District. Ridges and scarps make forced open spaces even among the serried ranks of small late-Victorian houses; there are woods and parks and tree-lined suburbs bright with little gardens. And everywhere, the hills. The streets slant and twist at what, to an eye attuned to the American Southwest, are very odd angles; the countryside runs long fingers of high ground into the heart of the suburbs.
The place has been through tough times in the last twenty years, as a city built on coal and steel tried to find ways to survive when the coal and steel were gone. There were mistakes and false starts: the World Student Games fizzled, leaving the council with a nice sports facility but deep in debt; the National Museum of Popular Music was another flop, though its curious round, steel-clad buildings still stand. The parks fell into neglect; the public flowerbeds vanished; the roadside grass verges, once regularly mowed, grew shaggy every summer. Nearby Meadowhall -- a shopping mall that serves the whole region, out by Tinsley in the middle of what used to be a textbook industrial landscape -- sucked some of the life out of the city centre, and the construction of the tracks for the SuperTram, which went on for a couple of years, had a rather blighting effect too, though it swept away some of the uglier bits of postwar design. Ten years ago, I'd come home from London and find that the whole place felt shabby, dreary, depressing, almost moribund. The odd attempts at improvement, like the Orchard Square shopping precinct, felt alien and unconvincing.
In the last few years, things have been changing, and often for the better. Millennium grants helped, with the resurrection of the Botanical Gardens, the revamping of the Peace Gardens by the Town Hall, the erection of the Winter Garden. The Winter Garden, a graceful confection of glass and steel and wooden arches beheind the Peace Gardens, was loved as soon as it was finished; the construction of a large bland hotel right in front of it a couple of years later is generally regarded as unfortunate. With property values soaring, there was a sudden vogue for converting any unused building into 'luxury apartments': a brewery here; a church there; a municipal swimming bath; the old mental hospital; any number of old-fashioned city-centre offices; even the former headquarters of the Local Education Authority. The former polytechnic (obUS: community college), on the fringes of the centre, guarding the way to the railway station, smartened itself up to suit its new status as a University. The city centre started to come back to life.
Going to and from work the last few weeks, I see construction cranes everywhere. I see old buildings made beautiful and useful again. I see a bustle of people going to work. I see flowers, and sculpture, and decorative paving and interesting street furniture. I see a city that has remembered its pride.
Everything isn't perfect, of course. There are plenty of dingy, run-down, increasingly dangerous council estates. Most of the parks are still shabby, and it may be too late for some of them, the little gems like Beauchief Gardens and Whinfell Quarry Gardens, the bright enchanted places of my childhood, ever to be brought back. The state of the sidewalks in my mother's neighbourhood is a disgrace, with patches on patches on asphalt that was last properly relaid a quarter-century ago, cracked and humped by the roots of the flowering cherry trees. Also, I can't help wondering if all this new development is actually sustainable, or if the city is simply living on handouts that will dry up again in a few years.
For now, though, Sheffield is looking good.
The city is full of flowers: baskets of petunias and impatiens and lobelia balance from every railing, dangle from every archway and overhang; narrow beds of scarlet geraniums run down the middle of dual carriageways; two figures sculpted in houseleeks stand outside the Town Hall. Sheffield in Bloom, the signs say proudly, and this year, with even more pride, Representing Britain in Entente Florale. The judging for that was in July, but the flowers are still there. The other morning, as the bus turned a corner, I spotted a mid-road display of autumn crocuses, as big as tulips and delicately, luminously mauve, their shape lifting the heart as if with the promise of spring.
And my heart lifted, and I realized, quite suddenly, that I have a good feeling about Sheffield, this summer.
I loved Sheffield when I was growing up here. It's a city of half a million, nestling in a knot of valleys among hills on the edge of the Peak District. Ridges and scarps make forced open spaces even among the serried ranks of small late-Victorian houses; there are woods and parks and tree-lined suburbs bright with little gardens. And everywhere, the hills. The streets slant and twist at what, to an eye attuned to the American Southwest, are very odd angles; the countryside runs long fingers of high ground into the heart of the suburbs.
The place has been through tough times in the last twenty years, as a city built on coal and steel tried to find ways to survive when the coal and steel were gone. There were mistakes and false starts: the World Student Games fizzled, leaving the council with a nice sports facility but deep in debt; the National Museum of Popular Music was another flop, though its curious round, steel-clad buildings still stand. The parks fell into neglect; the public flowerbeds vanished; the roadside grass verges, once regularly mowed, grew shaggy every summer. Nearby Meadowhall -- a shopping mall that serves the whole region, out by Tinsley in the middle of what used to be a textbook industrial landscape -- sucked some of the life out of the city centre, and the construction of the tracks for the SuperTram, which went on for a couple of years, had a rather blighting effect too, though it swept away some of the uglier bits of postwar design. Ten years ago, I'd come home from London and find that the whole place felt shabby, dreary, depressing, almost moribund. The odd attempts at improvement, like the Orchard Square shopping precinct, felt alien and unconvincing.
In the last few years, things have been changing, and often for the better. Millennium grants helped, with the resurrection of the Botanical Gardens, the revamping of the Peace Gardens by the Town Hall, the erection of the Winter Garden. The Winter Garden, a graceful confection of glass and steel and wooden arches beheind the Peace Gardens, was loved as soon as it was finished; the construction of a large bland hotel right in front of it a couple of years later is generally regarded as unfortunate. With property values soaring, there was a sudden vogue for converting any unused building into 'luxury apartments': a brewery here; a church there; a municipal swimming bath; the old mental hospital; any number of old-fashioned city-centre offices; even the former headquarters of the Local Education Authority. The former polytechnic (obUS: community college), on the fringes of the centre, guarding the way to the railway station, smartened itself up to suit its new status as a University. The city centre started to come back to life.
Going to and from work the last few weeks, I see construction cranes everywhere. I see old buildings made beautiful and useful again. I see a bustle of people going to work. I see flowers, and sculpture, and decorative paving and interesting street furniture. I see a city that has remembered its pride.
Everything isn't perfect, of course. There are plenty of dingy, run-down, increasingly dangerous council estates. Most of the parks are still shabby, and it may be too late for some of them, the little gems like Beauchief Gardens and Whinfell Quarry Gardens, the bright enchanted places of my childhood, ever to be brought back. The state of the sidewalks in my mother's neighbourhood is a disgrace, with patches on patches on asphalt that was last properly relaid a quarter-century ago, cracked and humped by the roots of the flowering cherry trees. Also, I can't help wondering if all this new development is actually sustainable, or if the city is simply living on handouts that will dry up again in a few years.
For now, though, Sheffield is looking good.
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(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-06 10:58 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-16 06:05 pm (UTC)Will mention it on my next blog (http://incurable-hippie.blogspot.com) entry, which is about winning the Entente Florale :D
(no subject)
Date: 2005-09-17 02:19 am (UTC)