I am sick and tired of journalists who can’t seem to grasp the basic requirements of their job. Cowie Hill is not Spryfield. They are two separate areas. Whenever there’s violence in Cowie Hill, it’s reported as having happened in Spryfield. Local news stations have done this several times in the past and have actually retracted and corrected the misinformation after several people called to complain.
But this morning on the radio, it happened yet again. It’s funny that the “mix up” only ever occurs when violence is involved.
People who think that Spryfield is a bad place always live outside of Spryfield and don’t actually know what they are talking about. It is a wonderful community, home to some of the best if not the best public schools in HRM and scores of supportive local businesses. This reputation we’ve been branded with is hurting the chances of community improvement as people and businesses are reluctant to give us a chance.
So thanks to the local media staff for making our bad reputation worse by either repeatedly doing such a poor job investigating that you can’t even correctly report the location of an incident, or for intentionally misreporting the location of incidents to reinforce a tired old myth as a cheap way to grab attention. Doesn’t matter which, either one is shameful and embarrassing on your part. —Spry
This article appears in Dec 2-8, 2010.
Actually Fairview to Spryfeild is considered a high crime area…which I believe takes in Cowie hill !
Bad People Live There, all of us out in the country know it this way….& we’re too set in our ways to change ~;)
Spryfield has one block where most of the crime in the entire town has taken place. Other than that it is a fantastic community. A great place to raise your children with excellent P-9 schools! I would easily move to that community if I didn’t have my roots planted in another place.
Isn’t Cowie Hill part of Armdale, not Spryfield?
Armdale…that’s in between Fairview & Spryfeild…so same same ~;)
Cowie Hill … Spryfield. Makes no difference in the eyes of the police or real estate agents. It’s still like Spryfield and plagued with crime.
they’re all skeezy and crime-ridden…
spry, cowie, fairview…
why the hell do you think it’s so god damn cheap to live there?
actually o.p., spryfield starts as soon as you hit the herring cove road,instead of going to kline heights. yes i know all about it, cause i used to live in the heights. and anyone thinks these little shitheads are tough today, you should have lived in the heights in the 60’s. you would crap your pants for sure then.
I sure am glad I live further up on Lacewood! None of that fairview skeeziness for PK! hahaha
Seriously though…compared to like….Scarborough in Toronto, for example, fairview/spryfield/cowie hill/etc… is like an oasis of law abiding citizens and actions.
Scarborough’s like sackville…with guns. *shudder*
now, now kitty, i live on the lower end of evans, and generally is pretty fucking quiet here. i like it that way, and if some asshole wants to try changing that, well then there will be hell to pay with me.cowie hill was classified as spryfield long before the armdale extension came about. it is still in spryfield jurisdiction, same as some parts of old sambo road. spryfield goes out as far as the old city limits on the herring cove road. but now it is just all called spryfield. armdale started at the rotary/round a fuckup, and went out the bay road to where lakeside industrial park starts. beechville used to be included at one time too. but if you want to live anywhere, then don’t bother with the middle area of fairview, basically all of spryfield now, and kline heights is getting just as bad as it used to be years back. but no running gunfights, dammit. i grew up out there, so i know all the trash that still lives and deals out there. they can have it, but come fucking round my door, then there will be a fucking war like you never saw before. people in those areas know me by another name, and they know i can be just like that tag. and i’m proud of being a berzerker.
When in doubt consult the almightly internet. On Wikipedia’s Cowie Hill page it refers to Spryfield as a nearby area which implies they are separate. While on the Spryfield page it says that Spryfield is everything from the armdale rotary down. So I don’t know what to believe, teh internets haz 4saken us!!:(
But serisouly regardless of the boundries I totally buy what OP is saying about unfair media coverage, newspapers have a habit of favoring bad news over good news. I have some friends and relatives that live in Sprytown and they love it there but apparently most of the crime happens on Greystone and if it’s not there it’s committed by people who don’t actually live in Spryfield.
Skeezy, eh?
As someone who has lived in Cowie Hill for 2+ years I’ve only heard of one major incident taking place in the immediate area. Most of what I have heard about has taken place in Spryfield proper (ha!). My neighbourhood is clean and quiet. Neighbours help eachother out. Its actually a great place to live.
But it is the Gateway.
You’re hung up over the same sort of thing that drew the far north enders to change Gottingen to “Novalea” in the 80s. Don’t watch that sensationalist bs on the news. I know a girl from the Dartmouth suburbs who basically never came to Halifax, and when she started attending SMU she was terrified as if the peninsula was South Central LA or something. Like anywhere else in HRM, walking down the street in Spryfield you’ve got a 0.0001% chance of falling into trouble.
Anyway, Cowie Hill is the name of a subdivision in Spryfield. Using your logic I could open the Calvingate Estates subdivision in Dartmouth and then chide ATV for referring to us as Dartmouthians.
I live on the cusp of Cowie Hill (technically Armdale, looking at a council district map). I do all of my grocery shopping in Spryfield, take trips to the drug store in Spryfield, do banking in Spryfield, go walking and biking in Spryfield and Cowie Hill… they aren’t bad. There are more violent incidents in the South End most times than Spryfield. The people are always friendly (you should see the support if someone’s house burns down or if there is a family in need), the rec centres have lots of great programs and I don’t see a problem with it in the least. And it’s cheap because it’s not downtown, not because it’s a high-crime area.
When I lived in Armdale I always corrected people who said I lived in Spryfield. Honestly though, I consider Spryfield starting once you get past the Needs at Withrod/Herring Cove road, so yes, Cowie Hill is Spryfield.
Scarborough’s like sackville…with guns. *shudder*
WOW….Thanks PK. Have you ever lived in Sackville at any point of your life or are you just judging by the way people talk about it…or you drove past once on the highway or Down Sackville Drive? Try going through Millwood or Riverside estates or Cavalier…….try giving a town a chance before you judge it. I grew up there since I was 8 years old…and coming from Brampton Ontario….it was nothing like Scarborough. I used to judge Spryfield (so I can’t really get on your case) then my brother moved his family there and now I have nothing but good things to say about that community.
I live just down from LS’s…
in fact, I had friends who lived practically next door to you a while back… love that best choice. 🙂
fairview is skeezy.
no boudt adout it.
Actually Spryfield starts just after the old sambro rd. by KFC.
Thats Nukka’s territory!