[Urgent] Save Hop Kingdom from Eviction!
Last week during my few days in London to attend Bespoked UK, I made a mandatory stop at Hop Kingdom, as this is one of the few places on this planet that truly makes me feel at home. I went there with a certain tightness in my chest, as it was only a few days prior that I saw on their Instagram that their actual landlord tried to evict them by putting locks on all their doors, and that thanks to luck, or whatever else it was, they were able to get back inside and continue to operate since the lease was not legally forfeited.
You’ll be able to read the entire story on their crowdfunder page, but here is a little recap:
For nearly eight years, Hop Kingdom has been so much more than a venue. It's been a skatepark welcoming riders of every level, a bike shop serving the cycling community, a bar where people meet and unwind, and an events space hosting music, art, poetry, and countless community-led nights. As a registered community interest company, its entire mission has been people over profit, and by all accounts, it has delivered, with members describing it as a lifeline for their mental health, confidence, and sense of belonging.
Then came The Arch Co… A company wholly owned by Blackstone, which is often confused with BlackRock due to the similar name. Both are colossal American financial firms, but they operate differently: Blackstone is primarily a private equity and alternative asset management firm that buys and owns things, buildings, infrastructure, and businesses, while BlackRock is the world's largest asset manager, controlling vast pools of capital invested across global financial markets. But who really cares? Because despite these different models, they still have the same philosophy. Both exist solely to extract maximum returns, regardless of the trail of social, ecological, cultural, and human destruction they leave in their wake, with communities displaced, environments degraded, local economies hollowed out, and living spaces reduced to line items on a balance sheet.
Despite ongoing communication from Ben, Hop Kingdom's founder, and despite six weeks of complete silence on their end, The Arch Co sent locksmiths in the middle of the night to change the locks and force the business out. All of that with again, no dialogue, no warning, or no acknowledgement of the community that had been built there. Just a notice of forfeiture and an expectation that eight years of work would quietly leave the space.
This is what aggressive capitalism looks like at street level. A foreign asset giant, answerable to shareholders, treating a living, breathing community space as nothing more than an asset with lower returns. The people who skate there, fix their bikes there, find friends, and more are irrelevant to the people of this company that only see rent adding up to a couple of grand every month to their already billions of profits. 14.45 billions profit in 2025, to be exact…
Today you can help Hop Kingdom cover the rent they owe (mostly as a backlash from the hard covid-19 times) as well as some funds for a potential legal dispute. Even £1 from enough people can make a difference to save one of my favorite places, like it is for many others.
Like I say in so many articles on this platform, it’s places like this one that are at the very center of our culture. Without them, we wouldn’t be able to meet passionate people like us, live what are sometimes life-changing experiences, and do many, many more things that make the cycling, fixed gear, and messenger cultures what they are today!
Help right now by donating and saving Hop right here. ⬇️
Love you guy <3
💾: Leica SL
📍: Hop Kingdom
