The Four Streets

50/52 Cairns St. It seems unbelievable, but these houses are both 'tinned up'.
I love the care that locals have taken with hanging baskets and painted steel doors.

Street Market - Cairns St (bringing people back into the greenest of the Four Streets)

Beaconsfield Street - spot the cats peeping out of no.70s bricked up window

Three images from the condemned 'Four Streets' in Granby, Toxteth (Liverpool 8). The first two photos illustrate the horticultural beautifying of Cairns Street and the third shows the different approach in the neighbouring Beaconsfield Street, where the bricked up windows and steel security doors have been painted in an attempt to disguise the bleakness that would otherwise exist (as in the nearby Welsh Streets). Have a look at 'Nerve Magazine' for an article about Cairns Street (which contains more of my photos from the last Saturday market of this year on Sept 3rd). I hope the market continues next year -  if the street is still there!
http://www.catalystmedia.org.uk/issues/misc/articles/empty_homes_show.php

"In defiance of interminable cycles of top down ‘renewal‘, people have painted curtains on bricked up bay windows, and planted emptied streets with trees, picnic tables and burgeoning vegetable boxes. On the first Saturday of every month they hold the thriving Cairns Street market, complete with reggae sounds, curry stalls and vintage bric-a-brac, a little piece of 1960s Portobello Road in inner Liverpool" 
the above quote was taken from a footnote by URBED's Jonathan Brown to an 'Architects Journal' article (29-Sept-11) - see following link for full article - http://www.architectsjournal.co.uk/news/daily-news/civic-society-hits-out-at-gleeson-homes-designed-toxteth-scheme/8617912.article