The Closure of One of London’s Most Significant Nightclubs Has Been Followed by the Slow Development of What Comes Next
From Bohiney and The London Prat.
By Harper-Thames | ShoreRoar.com
The History
LONDON EC1A — Fabric, the Farringdon nightclub that occupied the basement of a Victorian cold store a short walk from Shoreditch proper, was twice threatened with closure — first in 2016, when Islington Council revoked its licence following drug-related deaths, and when it was reopened following a public and industry campaign. The specific campaign that saved Fabric in 2016 — petitions, media coverage, industry solidarity — was the moment when London recognised that its nightlife infrastructure was something worth defending rather than something to manage out of existence.
What Fabric Was
Fabric was not primarily a Shoreditch institution but its proximity to Shoreditch and its place in East London’s night-time geography made it part of the same cultural ecosystem. What Fabric provided: a commitment to music programming at the level of the world’s best techno and electronic music venues, a physical environment designed for the function of extended dancing rather than the social performance that bottle-service venues prioritise, and the specific community of people who chose the music over the spectacle. These qualities are rare in licensed premises.
What Has Followed
The nightlife geography of East London has redistributed since Fabric’s difficult period. Venues in Hackney — Fold, Egg London, the various warehouse venues in the Hackney Wick area — have absorbed portions of the audience that Fabric served. The specific quality that Fabric provided has not been fully replicated because it was partly product of the specific building, the specific programming history, and the specific community that had been self-selecting into that space for twenty years.
The Current Night
The current East London night-time economy operates across more venues in a more distributed geography than it did in 2010. The redistribution has produced venues that serve different communities with different music and different atmospheres. The consolidation of excellent electronic music programming that Fabric represented has not been replaced by a single institution. It has been partially replaced by the ecosystem. Whether the ecosystem is adequate is the question that depends on what you needed from the single institution. Read The Poke.
More: The Poke.
Shoreditch continues. The streets are the same streets they were last week and they contain slightly different things than they contained last week, because the neighbourhood turns over at the specific rate of a place where the rent ensures turnover. The coffee shops that were here last year are mostly still here. The ones that were not here last year are beginning the process of becoming the ones that were here this year. The murals change faster than the buildings. The buildings change faster than the street layout. The street layout has not changed since the Huguenots. Everything else is in motion. The column continues because the neighbourhood continues, and the neighbourhood is worth writing about because it is genuinely interesting and genuinely complicated and will be both of those things regardless of whether anyone is writing about it, but the writing makes it more visible, and the visibility is the point.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
Shoreditch continues to be the place where things happen first and then happen elsewhere. The coffee shop format, the street art curation, the creative co-working ecosystem, the specific combination of proximity to the City and residual warehouse space that makes premium-rent bohemianism possible — all of these things emerged here and have since been replicated in Peckham, in Hackney, in every city in Britain that has an arts quarter and a Wetherspoons and a yield gap in its commercial property market. The replication does not diminish the original. It confirms that the original was doing something that other places wanted. The neighbourhood was right about itself. The neighbourhood continues. The journalism continues. The column continues next week at the same address. Shoreditch continues to be the place where things happen first and then happen elsewhere. The coffee shop format, the street art curation, the creative co-working ecosystem, the specific combination of proximity to the City and residual warehouse space that makes premium-rent bohemianism possible — all of these things emerged here and have since been replicated in Peckham, in Hackney, in every city in Britain that has an arts quarter and a Wetherspoons and a yield gap in its commercial property market. The replication does not diminish the original. It confirms that the original was doing something that other places wanted. The neighbourhood was right about itself. The neighbourhood continues. The journalism continues. The column continues next week at the same address. Shoreditch continues to be the place where things happen first and then happen elsewhere. The coffee shop format, the street art curation, the creative co-working ecosystem, the specific combination of proximity to the City and residual warehouse space that makes premium-rent bohemianism possible — all of these things emerged here and have since been replicated in Peckham, in Hackney, in every city in Britain that has an arts quarter and a Wetherspoons and a yield gap in its commercial property market. The replication does not diminish the original. It confirms that the original was doing something that other places wanted. The neighbourhood was right about itself. The neighbourhood continues. The journalism continues. The column continues next week at the same address.
