Piccadilly
It is part of the A4 road that connects central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, Heathrow Airport and the M4 motorway westward.
155, was one of the most famous coaching inns in England by the late 18th century, by which time the street had become a favoured location for booksellers.
Piccadilly Circus station, at the east end of the street, was opened in 1906 and rebuilt to designs by Charles Holden between 1925 and 1928.
During the 20th century, Piccadilly became known as a place to acquire heroin, and was notorious in the 1960s as the centre of London's illegal drug trade.
Its landmarks include the Ritz, Park Lane, Athenaeum and Intercontinental hotels, Fortnum & Mason, the Royal Academy, the RAF Club, Hatchards, the Embassy of Japan and the High Commission of Malta.
[2] During the Tudor period, relatively settled conditions made expansion beyond London's city walls a safer venture.
[3] A plot of land bounded by Coventry, Sherwood, Glasshouse and Rupert streets and the line of Smith's Court was granted by Elizabeth I to William Dodington, a gentleman of London, in 1559–60.
[4] Shortly after purchasing the land, he enclosed it (the parishioners had Lammas grazing rights) and erected several dwellings, including a residence and shop for himself; within two years his house was known as Pickadilly Hall.
[1] After the restoration of the English monarchy in 1660, Charles II encouraged the development of Portugal Street and the area to the north (Mayfair), and they became fashionable residential localities.
[15] The land to the south of Piccadilly was leased to trustees of the Earl of St Albans in 1661 for a thirty-year term, subsequently extended to 1740.
[22] By 1788, the store sold poultry, potted meats, lobsters and prawns, savoury patties, Scotch eggs, and fresh and dried fruits.
Also of note were the Hercules' Pillars, just west of Hamilton Place, the Triumphant Car, which was popular with soldiers, and the White Horse and Half Moon.
107 in 1825, and the construction of other large buildings, complete with ballrooms and marble staircases, led to the street being colloquially referred to as Rothschild Row.
170, designed in 1812 by P. F. Robinson for W. Bullock of Liverpool, was modelled on Ancient Egyptian architecture, particularly the Great Temple of Dendera (Tentyra).
Albert, Duke of York was living at 145 Piccadilly at the time of his accession as King George VI in 1936; it was badly damaged by a bomb during the London Blitz.
Jazz trumpeter Dizzy Reece recalled people queuing outside Piccadilly's branch of Boots for heroin pills in the late 1940s.
[43] By the 1960s, the street and surrounding area were notorious as the centre of London's illegal drug trade, where heroin and cocaine could be purchased on the black market from unscrupulous chemists.
The radical squatting movement that resulted foundered soon afterward, owing to the rise of drug dealers and Hells Angels occupying the site.
An eviction took place on 21 September 1969; the events resulted in the licensing of squatting organisations that could take over empty premises to use as homeless shelters.
[50] The road is part of the A4 connecting central London to Hammersmith, Earl's Court, Heathrow Airport and the M4 motorway.
Congestion along the road has been reported since the mid-19th century, leading to its progressive widening and removing the northern portions of Green Park.
It was written in 1912 about an Irishman living in London, but became popular after being adopted by the mostly Irish Connaught Rangers during World War I.
[63] One of the major hit songs of the Edwardian musical play The Arcadians (1909) which enjoyed long runs in the West End of London and on New York's Broadway is "All down Piccadilly" (Simplicitas and Chorus, Act III, revised version), with music by Lionel Monckton who also co-wrote the words with Arthur Wimperis.
E. W. Hornung's "gentleman thief" Raffles lives at the Albany, as does Jack Worthing from Oscar Wilde's The Importance of Being Earnest.
[65] According to author Mary C King, Wilde chose the street because of its resemblance to the Spanish word peccadillo, meaning "slashed" or "pierced".
[66] In Evelyn Waugh's novel Brideshead Revisited, the mansion Marchmain House, supposedly located in a cul-de-sac off St James's near Piccadilly, is demolished and replaced with flats.
[67] In Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, Jonathan Harker is astonished to see the Count in Piccadilly, which sets off a chain of events that leads to the formation of the group of vampire hunters.
Wodehouse novels use the setting of Piccadilly as the playground of the rich, idle bachelor in the inter-war period of the 20th century.
[71] Dorothy Sayers' fictional detective Lord Peter Wimsey is described as living at 110A Piccadilly in the inter-war period.
[75] In 1996, Latvian singer Laima Vaikule released an album titled Ya vyshla na Pikadilli ("I Went Out on Piccadilly").
