please empty your brain below
The Odeon Cinema was originally the Regal but that was demolished in 1964 and the present Odeon built. Now there are plans to demolish the Odeon (plus the tower block) and build another new cinema, so I may well live to have seen 3 different cinemas on that site.
There was once a good network of pedestrian subways,
(from the 1960’s) including access from Speakers Corner to the tube. They have been filled in and everyone now has to take their chance crossing the main road.
Speakers Corner was black tarmac until a few years ago when it was replaced with a more decorative covering to try and encourage the speakers back to that area, but it did not succeed and the speakers continue to stand mainly in the area where your photo says "look both ways" causing problems to cyclists as they block the cycle path.
The speakers and hecklers migrated there as traffic increased at Marble Arch and it became difficult to be heard above the noise. Up until his death in 1998 Lord Soper was a regular speaker and he always spoke at the “proper” Speakers Corner area!
I have walked around that sub station many times but never looked to see what was up the stairs, now I know! Thanks.
Well maybe they do. An alternative guess is that the Crossrail planners did not consider digging up the park, through a combination of the negative publicity that might have resulted, and the fact that no stations, junctions or other significant features needed to be installed there anyway.
Parking was easy as the shops were closed on Sundays in those days.
After North Carriage Drive was made no parking I used to park along Bayswater Road. This later also became difficult so I ended up parking in those little streets around Lees Place that you walked through. I received a parking ticket there once, but got it cancelled!
Since the shops opened on Sundays parking around Marble Arch has become far more difficult.
In 2006 I got a Freedom Bus so gave up the car (great) and parking is no longer a problem.
Some comments have been made about not digging up Hyde Park for Crossrail work, and I think Malcolm's comment is probably correct.
The park does get disturbed a great deal with commercial events nowdays, and of course the Crystal Palace exhibition was there once. So the grassland is no stranger to upheaval.
I rented a workspace in Great Western Studios based in the old Great Western Railway 'Lost Goods Building' from 1995, for a very cheap rent for the area, on the assumption we would be turfed out by Crossrail within a year or two. In the end, we stayed until 2009 when the building was demolished for the western portal and tunnelling machines to be constructed/installed.
Westbourne Park bus depot alongside the portal (its roof is the Westway) is benefitting from Crossrail as a new double deck bus parking raft is being built alongside the Crossrail works.
Originally Crossrail was going to have a vent in Hyde Park. I think it got as far as being incorporated into the Crossrail Act. It was always recognised as a undesirable and a comprehensive rethink about smoke extraction using bigger more powerful fans elsewhere meant that London Fire Brigade agreed to various changes including removal of the planned vent in Hyde Park.
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