Haggerston West estate in Hackney is being "regenerated", which is to say the old depressing 1930s council blocks are being gradually demolished and replaced with, it's to be hoped, something better. In the meantime an already run-down area now looks like something beamed over from Magnetogorsk or some such god-forsaken post-Soviet relic:
Here's the local pub, the Overdraught:
Today, cycling past on the Regent's Canal towpath, I noticed a change:
In place of the orange boards, they've put…pictures. Portraits. Of local residents.
What a great idea!
The initiative came from some local artists, and goes under the name I Am Here. Some background, and here's a time-lapse film of the installation last week.
Samuel House is the only block affected. The others are scheduled for demolition in the very near future; this is the last to go, in 2011. So for a couple of years an area is transformed with a little bit of imagination.
As this was all achieved with the blessing of Hackney Council, perhaps we can give them back some (just a little) of the credit they lost when they started painting over the Banksy mural on Stoke Newington Church Street a couple of weeks ago – a sorry tale related here by Ms Baroque.
Mick Hartley 
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