Famous places down the street where I work Piccadilly Circus
They say that if you stand in Piccadilly Circus for long enough, eventually everyone in the world will pass by. Stand among the crowds of tourists beneath Eros on a busy summer's day and you could almost believe that this is true. Obviously you'd have to wait around an awful long time to see both Osama Bin Laden and my Mum, but you get the idea. Piccadilly Circus isn't a particularly special place really, just a big road junction with a statue and some adverts, but it's got space to mill around and somehow it feels important. And it's a real magnet for foreign visitors who stand around in large groups endlessly taking pictures of each other just 'being here'.
Piccadilly Circus was formed in 1819 by the intersection of John Nash's magnificent curving RegentStreet with Piccadilly. The newly-formed crossroads wasn't so much a circus as a square, and a very grand square at that. In 1886 Shaftesbury Avenue was built, demolishing the north-east corner and giving the road junction the oddly squashed shape it has today. Tenants of the new buildings realised they could sell advertising space on their façades and so the area became famous for its illuminated advertising boards. It's a far cry from the first ad for Bovril (comprising just 600 light bulbs) to the mesmerising electronic displays to be found here today.
The most well-known sight in Piccadilly Circus is the statue of Eros, designed by Alfred Gilbert and erected in 1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury. Despite what most people think it's not a statue of the Greek god of love, being officially titled 'The Angel of Christian Charity'. The figure is made of aluminium, a rare metal at the time of its construction, and sits atop a bronze fountain depicting a variety of marine life. The winged nude originally pointed towards Shaftesbury Avenue, firing his arrow downwards into the pavement (burying his shaft - although that's apparently a coincidence). During the Second World War the statue was removed for safe keeping, but on its return the bow was fixed pointing to the south, and then again wrongly reorientated after the road junction was upgraded in the 1990s. No sense of history, these town planners.
On the north-eastern side of the Circus is the London Pavilion, originally a music hall and now home to the Trocadero shopping arcade. To the west at number 1 Piccadilly is the old Swan and Edgar department store, reborn in 1982 as Tower Records and very very recently reopened after major refurbishment as yet another Virgin Megastore. And directly beneath London's most famous roundabout lies Piccadilly Circus tube station, built in 1906 with its trademark circular ticket hall. I rather like the mechanical clock down there depicting 'The World Time Today', but few tourists ever seem to stop to check out the time back home. Too busy I guess. It's like Piccadilly Circus here.
Famous places down the street where I work
They say that if you stand in Piccadilly Circus for long enough, eventually everyone in the world will pass by. Stand among the crowds of tourists beneath Eros on a busy summer's day and you could almost believe that this is true. Obviously you'd have to wait around an awful long time to see both Osama Bin Laden and my Mum, but you get the idea. Piccadilly Circus isn't a particularly special place really, just a big road junction with a statue and some adverts, but it's got space to mill around and somehow it feels important. And it's a real magnet for foreign visitors who stand around in large groups endlessly taking pictures of each other just 'being here'.
The most well-known sight in Piccadilly Circus is the statue of Eros, designed by Alfred Gilbert and erected in 1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of Lord Shaftesbury. Despite what most people think it's not a statue of the Greek god of love, being officially titled 'The Angel of Christian Charity'. The figure is made of aluminium, a rare metal at the time of its construction, and sits atop a bronze fountain depicting a variety of marine life. The winged nude originally pointed towards Shaftesbury Avenue, firing his arrow downwards into the pavement (burying his shaft - although that's apparently a coincidence). During the Second World War the statue was removed for safe keeping, but on its return the bow was fixed pointing to the south, and then again wrongly reorientated after the road junction was upgraded in the 1990s. No sense of history, these town planners.
