Harlow ...an American perspective
Up they went in their hundreds during the next twenty years. There was scarcely a town or suburb of any size that didn't have one. This was not quite the prototype, Harlow being, after Stevenage, the second New Town established, in 1947. By the mid-1970s these pedestrianised shopping precincts were part of the background of all our lives.
Here in Broad Walk, begun in 1958, the vision of the new town's supremo, Sir Frederick Gibberd ...elsewhere compromised over the years... survives in its purest form. Its muddled appearance, with shops of mixed height, is not an asset, frowns Pevsner. The obelisk is by Gibberd, concrete faced with Portland stone, erected 1980 to commemorate the building of Harlow. When I was younger I hated these places, but now they have acquired a certain Period Charm. Modern high street names such as Holland & Barrett and Shoe Zone don't seem quite right, do they?
The title refers to an opinion expressed by my wife, who is a native of Pennsylvania and has the direct habit of speech for which our cousins across the herring pond are noted. She leaned over my shoulder as I was preparing to upload the photograph.
"The hardest thing is always to think of a title", I grumbled.
"What's it of?"
"Harlow ...you remember ...we stopped off on the way back from IKEA because we needed to pee". Well, I'd thought it might be a bit more interesting than Bishops Stortford services, but Mrs B does not share my interest in postwar town planning.
"Oh yeah. That was a weird place. You oughta call it the fuggin' twilight zone".
Harlow ...an American perspective
Up they went in their hundreds during the next twenty years. There was scarcely a town or suburb of any size that didn't have one. This was not quite the prototype, Harlow being, after Stevenage, the second New Town established, in 1947. By the mid-1970s these pedestrianised shopping precincts were part of the background of all our lives.
Here in Broad Walk, begun in 1958, the vision of the new town's supremo, Sir Frederick Gibberd ...elsewhere compromised over the years... survives in its purest form. Its muddled appearance, with shops of mixed height, is not an asset, frowns Pevsner. The obelisk is by Gibberd, concrete faced with Portland stone, erected 1980 to commemorate the building of Harlow. When I was younger I hated these places, but now they have acquired a certain Period Charm. Modern high street names such as Holland & Barrett and Shoe Zone don't seem quite right, do they?
The title refers to an opinion expressed by my wife, who is a native of Pennsylvania and has the direct habit of speech for which our cousins across the herring pond are noted. She leaned over my shoulder as I was preparing to upload the photograph.
"The hardest thing is always to think of a title", I grumbled.
"What's it of?"
"Harlow ...you remember ...we stopped off on the way back from IKEA because we needed to pee". Well, I'd thought it might be a bit more interesting than Bishops Stortford services, but Mrs B does not share my interest in postwar town planning.
"Oh yeah. That was a weird place. You oughta call it the fuggin' twilight zone".