Cambridge

Remembering the lost streets and pubs of cambridge, a city losing its character to corporate blandness.

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Its never too late

I know the old parts of cambridge that have been demolished can never be brought back but I still think its not too late to do something about it so I have decided to boycott the grafton from now on, alright I admit I did go there when it was first opened and ive seen a few films at the multi plex cinema , actually it cant really be called a cinema, its a collection of rooms with a screen at one end.A real cinema in the city center closed down because it couldnt compete with the one in the grafton, and that cinema was far better than any of those rooms, it had a bigger screen and a far better sound system, its come back to life sort of as a smaller independant arty cinema but the rest of the building is a big pub, one of the largest in England ive heard, and for me its one of the worst ive ever been in.
Right what else can I do, well there is the local paper, its not too bad but these days i'm afraid its lost a lot of character and has gone down the tabloid route with terrible headlines littered with puns. I am not sure if the locals just think well its happened now so I wont say anything about it but I dont think a lot of people actually know about some of the great things cambridge has lost, an old inn called the three tuns which was built in the 1600s and the bloke who got famous for writing a diary that included the fire of london, it is a good read to be honest, yes none other than sam pepys, well he drank himself to oblivion there many times , and olly cromwell, he dropped in as well.Thats gone now and there is an ugly building in its place, I think its a hostel for the students of kings college, the old church next to it is still there thank goodness, that was built in the 13th century no less.Well you might say that old inn was knocked down a long time ago but it wasnt, it was 1959 and it was a listed building.There are many more examples of our history that have been lost to the corporate machine or whatever you choose to call it.So really the most anyone can do about what has happened in cambridge is to learn from the past mistakes and to not let it happen again in other towns and cities in the future, yes I know heh, its not going to happen.

1 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home