Charlotte Street

Charlotte Street is a street in Fitzrovia, central London. The southern half of the street has many restaurants and cafes, and a lively nightlife; while the northern part of the street is more mixed in character, and includes the large office building of the advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, and a University College London student hall of residence, Astor College. The street has a significant residential population living above the ground floor. Two conservation areas are contained within the street: Charlotte Street conservation area (Camden) and Charlotte Street West conservation area (City of Westminster)

History

Charlotte Street, formed in 1763, was named in honour of Queen Charlotte who married King George III in 1761. It was one of three streets in and around Fitzrovia which took her name. The other two have since been renamed Hallam Street and Bloomsbury Street. Fitzrovia itself was named after the Fitzroy Tavern, a public house on Charlotte Street. The boundary of Camden and Westminster runs along part of Charlotte Street.

Goodge Street tube station

Goodge Street /ˈɡuːdʒ/ is a London Underground station on Tottenham Court Road of the London Borough of Camden. It is on the Northern line between Tottenham Court Road and Warren Street stations and is in Travelcard Zone 1.

History

It was opened on 22 June 1907 by the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway as Tottenham Court Road but changed to the present name on 3 September 1908 when an interchange was built between the previously separate (and differently named) Northern and Central line stations at the present Tottenham Court Road. Goodge Street station changed its name on the same date.

Design

It is one of the few tube stations that still rely on lifts rather than escalators to transport passengers to and from street level. In addition, it is one of the few tube stations with lifts to use the original scheme of separate exit and entrance areas. Alternatively, passengers can use the 136-step staircase to get down to the platforms.

Although the station is extremely busy at peak times, the flow is very one-sided. Few people enter the station when the majority are exiting and vice versa, and four lifts, full when travelling in one direction, often return with few people in them.

W postcode area

Postcode district boundaries: Bing / Google

The W (Western and Paddington) postcode area, also known as the London W postcode area is a group of postcode districts covering part of central and part of west London, England. The area originates from the Western (W1) and Paddington (W2-14) districts of the London postal district.

Postal administration

The Western district consists of the single original W1 postal district. The area it covers is of very high density development and it has been subdivided into a number of smaller postcode districts. Where districts are used for purposes other than the sorting of mail, such as use as a geographic reference and on street signs, the W1 subdivisions continue to be classed as one 'district'. In June 2000 there was a recoding of the area with the W1M, W1N, W1P, W1R, W1V, W1X and W1Y districts replaced.

The mail centre for W1 is London Central and for W2-14 is Greenford.

Deliveries for W1 (and for WC1 and WC2) came from the Western District Office office on Rathbone Place, until it was decommissioned. This office was a stop on the former London Post Office Railway, which has been mothballed since 2003. The Western District Office was initially located on Wimpole Street, which was also a stop on the London Post Office Railway.

Street

A street is a public thoroughfare (usually paved) in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable surface such as concrete, cobblestone or brick. Portions may also be smoothed with asphalt, embedded with rails, or otherwise prepared to accommodate non-pedestrian traffic.

Originally the word "street" simply meant a paved road (Latin: "via strata"). The word "street" is still sometimes used colloquially as a synonym for "road", for example in connection with the ancient Watling Street, but city residents and urban planners draw a crucial modern distinction: a road's main function is transportation, while streets facilitate public interaction. Examples of streets include pedestrian streets, alleys, and city-centre streets too crowded for road vehicles to pass. Conversely, highways and motorways are types of roads, but few would refer to them as streets.

Fitzroy Place

Fitzroy Place is a 95,000 m² office, residential and commercial complex in Fitzrovia, London which is being developed from the former Middlesex Hospital building site.

It was originally to be known as Noho Square, presumably a backformation from 'North' i.e. north of Oxford Street, as if Soho (south of Oxford St) were derived from 'South'. The development was not favoured locally, and was disliked even more because of "that horrible Noho name" chosen by the Candy brothers for the development.

Redevelopment was halted by the global financial crisis, as an Icelandic bank was the biggest shareholder, but the project has now been taken on by Aviva Investors and Exemplar Properties. As the name NoHo Square was unpopular, the project became known as the "former Middlesex Hospital site" and more recently as Fitzroy Place.

History

A Guernsey-based consortium of the Icelandic Kaupthing Bank, the Candy brothers' CPC Group (33%) and Richard Caring (10%) bought the 3-acre (12,000 m²) Middlesex site from University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust for £175m in June 2006. The demolition was completed in late 2008. When Kaupthing went into administration, the Candys swapped their stake in NoHo Square for Kaupthing's share of another joint development in Beverley Hills.