If you ever take a trip down Piccadilly, you’ll struggle to ignore the plethora of iconic buildings and names that line the busy thoroughfare; the British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA), Fortnum and Mason, the Royal Academy of Arts. Intimidatingly fancy and alluring, it’s no wonder that Piccadilly is one of the top go-to streets to meander for fresh visitors to the city. Piccadilly Circus and its Underground station are known the world over, and the circus itself meant to be the London equivalent of New York’s Times Square, watched over by a statue of the Greek god Anteros (although it’s a common error to mistake him for cupid). It’s a prime spot to go for some intense retail therapy, people watching and to get a bite to eat.

Famous for being one of the widest and straightest streets in central London, Piccadilly has been a retail hub as far back as the medieval period. In fact, the area got its name because of the fortunes of Robert Baker, who bought and developed the road, which all started from his business selling piccadills (meaning a large broad collar of cut-work lace that was particularly popular between the 17th and 18th centuries). However, underneath its reputation for luxury retail also laid a dark underworld of heroin and prostitution in the 1960s. The famous lights in Piccadilly Circus first lit up in 1908 and were only ever switched off on four occasions; during the Second World War, during the funerals of Winston Churchill and Princess Diana, and the WWF Earth Hour.

Artist Yoko Ono is said to have splashed £150k in 2002 putting up a banner on the screen in Piccadilly Circus. The banner displayed the lyrics from John Lennon’s 1971 tune Imagine, specifically “imagine all the people living life in peace”. It was up for a total of 3 months!

It is no surprise that Piccadilly is a nightmare in terms of congestion and the pollution it entails. There is not only the traffic caused by buses, taxis and the cars of wealthy locals that clog up the area, but also the hordes of tourists who frequent the famous site.

As an iconic tourist destination, Piccadilly is currently not seeing any major changes to its infrastructure or ambiance. However, small new development and refurbishment initiatives do occassionally manifest. In 2017, the council granted planning permission to turn 33-35 Piccadilly, a post-war office block, into a new retail and office hub, in partnership with The Crown Estate and following the design proposal of architecture studio DSDHA. That said, it’s been 5 years since they were granted permission, and no works have begun yet. In more recent news, Landsec, which owns the building on 1 Sherwood Street right next to the famous billboards on Piccadilly Circus, began construction in April 2021 on a redevelopment that would see the land transformed into a new six-story mixed-use building with three basement levels comprising 111,000 sq ft of commercial office space, 30,000 sq ft retail space and seven new residential units. The design for the project intends to maximise its unique views of central London, while adding contemporary geometric design elements.