13. Teletex Circus

Newcastle became a “new media” city a few years after it became a “telecom city,” just over a decade ago. Almost overnight, the boutique design houses and new media solutions consultants took over part of ailing downtown, taking advantage of (then) cheap rents and build-out loft space that could cheaply accommodate rooms full of computer networks. In the intervening time, the neighborhood has become one of daytime productivity and single nightlife. Teletex Circus has everything one might find in a neighborhood devoted to media: coffee shops, an Apple store, art galleries, patio bistros and bars with brushed steel appointments where graphic designers and video editors with no kids and disposable income spend $70 a night on vodka tonics.

Background

Teletex Circus used to be a consumer goods warehousing sector, and when orders for business product came into Hoyt & Cross back in the 1940s, the warehouses of then- Hoyt & Houghton filled the orders and shipped them out. Some of the refurbished buildings still have the names and logo of those now defunct companies emblazoned on their brick facades, from the Cut-Rate Box Co. to Hitchens’ Cold Storage. It’s a neighborhood in love with its own retro-modernity, and the prices of leases have skyrocketed with the district’s revitalization.

Alternative Name(s)

Media Sector

Type

District

Location under

New Castle