Harrington Street is starting to happen in an entirely new way. Read about six initiatives that are helping to animate this area in unexpected ways.
1. East City Alley: A place to create and congregate
It began in an isolated alleyway on Harrington Street in The Fringe – an unlikely place for creativity. But with a little imagination from Heath Nash and Lyall Sprong (from ThingKing) during Creative Week 2011, it became an interesting art installation, a thing of beauty. During this year’s Creative Week, our forgotten alleyway became a place not just to create, but to congregate:
- Tamboers Winkel hosted Braai Hard in the alley on 19 September, treating The Fringe community to boeries, sosaties and braaibroodjies for lunch.
- Creative Week also saw the alley turn into an outdoor cinema, screening two parts of Gary Hustwit’s design documentary trilogy, Helvetica and Objectified, while moviegoers dined on delicious fare from the Limoncello food truck. As a result of bad weather, the screening of Hustwit’s Urbanised was postponed to 10 October – so be sure to book your seat for this unique city experience.
- And just to prove that you can use public space for just about anything, Art of Living City Bowl Centre activated the alley with an early morning yoga session. Hopefully more people will be able to find their one-legged king pigeon pose in The Fringe on a more regular basis.
To keep up to date with East City Alley happenings, follow them on Facebook.
2. Harrington Square: Where the food truck trend lands every Thursday
Food trucks lend a brand new twist to drive-through dining. Trucking from venue to venue, these mobile restaurants bring a dining experience to unexpected spaces, animating pavements and parks, streets and squares with the convivial atmosphere of a shared meal. Now you can be part of a real in-town truck experience on Harrington Square, every Thursday for the foreseeable future. The Limoncello food truck, which has already garnered a loyal following, will be serving their top-notch Italian fare in The Fringe. Some of their pavement specials include calzone, pizza, pasta and risotto.
Follow the Cape Town Food Trucks on Facebook or Twitter (@CTFoodTrucks) to see when they will be making a pit stop near you.
3. Co/Mix: An all-day comic book and illustration event during Open Book
As part of Open Book festivities in The Fringe, Stellenbosch’s CCIBA — the Centre for Comic, Illustrative and Book Arts — hosted Co/Mix on 22 September. An all-day comic book and illustration event, punctuated by talks from Open Book authors and illustrators like Emily Gravett, Jacques de Loustal and Anton Kannemeyer, Co/Mix was an opportunity for local creatives to connect and sell their self-published wares.
To find out more about CCIBA, visit them at www.cciba.sun.ac.za
4. Oh! Cafe: Turning parking bays into little parks
As part of Creative Week 2012, three parking bays around Cape Town were temporarily turned into little parks — one of them outside Oh! Cafe on Harrington Street. The point of these interventions was to raise awareness around how much space private vehicles occupy in the city, and to begin to reimagine what that space could be used for. Other parklets were to be found on Bree Street outside Clarke’s and on Victoria Road in Camps Bay outside Col’Cacchios.
Read up on Park(ing) Day, an annual worldwide event where artists, designers and citizens transform metered parking spots into temporary public parks.
5. Wandering Words: A little library on a street corner
Wandering Words brings literature to the street in a unique and surprising manner — by attaching a little library to a lamp pole. Stocked with books and magazines, the first street library was launched during Creative Week on a lamp pole in Harrington Street. Wandering Words aims to create serendipitous reading experiences for passers-by, so feel free to go and stock it with books you’d like to pass on or trade one you’ve already read for a new one. You can also donate books to the project.
Simply connect with them on Twitter or send an email to wanderingwordsct@gmail.com.
6. Leather Lane: Where you can learn the tools of the trade
Leather merchants Woodhead’s has started giving the public access to leather crafting tools and technology, by opening up Leather Lane in a disused alley on Caledon Street. The service bar caters specifically for small businesses – designers, crafters and artisans who might not have the right leather tools for or the skill to work with them – and is fitted with hand tools like punches and mallets for finishing and hand embossing, as well as inserting eyelids and press studs. There are also plans to instal a laser cutting and embossing machine and maybe even a 3D prototyping and modelling machine.
Find Leather Lane just next to Woodhead’s at 29 Caledon Street.
Stay informed on Cape Town’s creative industries by tuning in to our Facebook page and Twitter account (@CreativeCT)
All images by Lisa Burnell
