OXFORD STREET

 

    There are around 300 shops in Oxford Street, and not much else. It stretches for 1 ¼ miles between Tottenham Court Road and Marble Arch and is the world’s biggest high street. But, apart from Selfridges, I’m not going to talk shop; so what follows will be relatively brief. Well maybe, I did write this paragraph first.

    We start at the Tottenham Court Road end and head west …. after a short easterly rain check along New Oxford Street ….

James Smith and Sons, 53 New Oxford Street


105-109 Oxford Street …. ‘Nice beaver’



    Nice Beaver (©Naked Gun) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wS3LWOTCW4A

   See also, a personal favourite …. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKnX5wci404

Dancer with Ribbon, 128 Oxford Street

UPDATE (Jan 2023): The statue has gone, I know not where. The Plaza is now a huge Primark just in case you missed the other huge Primark at the other end of Oxford Street.

Oxford Circus

     When there’s no pandemic, Oxford Circus normally has the highest pedestrian volumes in London.

     It has been a pedestrian scramble (aka X-crossing, diagonal crossing, Barnes dance, etc) since 2009, mimicking the one outside Shibuya Station in Tokyo. There were plans (right) to pedestrianize it in 2022 but there’s no sign of that happening.

 Winged Figure, 300 Oxford Street

    
HMV store 363-367, Oxford Street


UPDATE (Jan 2023): The HMV store is now home to yet another American Candy shop, probably a front for selling fake goods at inflated prices ....

…. at least the plaque is still there. 

                                                                          Evening Standard, March 2023

Further update The store will re-open on November 24, 2023, having been restored to it's former glory.

    Selfridges, 400 Oxford Street
     American businessman Harry Gordon Selfridge founded the store in 1909. His many innovations and stunts have since been copied by department stores worldwide. He even persuaded the General Post Office to assign his store the telephone number ‘1’; so for several years you only had to dial 1 to get straight through. Don’t try it now.

      Selfridges Oxford Street is the second largest department store in the UK, Harrods being the largest.

      You can buy just about anything at Selfridges; but they don’t sell fridges.


     In 2013 Selfridges installed the world’s first champagne vending machine (above, right). I made enquiries at the customer service desk and was told it isn’t there anymore. No-one seems to know what became of it. By all accounts it wasn’t that clever anyhow as you still had to take your champagne to the cash desk to pay for it.





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