Editing Piccadilly Circus (section)

==History==
Piccadilly Circus connects to [[Piccadilly]], a thoroughfare whose name first appeared in 1626 as Piccadilly Hall, named after a house belonging to one Robert Baker, a tailor famous for selling [[piccadill]]s, or piccadillies, a term used for various kinds of [[Collar (clothing)|collars]]. The street was known as Portugal Street in 1692 in honour of [[Catherine of Braganza]], the [[queen consort]] of King [[Charles II of England|Charles II]] but was known as Piccadilly by 1743. Piccadilly Circus was created in 1819, at the junction with [[Regent Street]], which was then being built under the planning of [[John Nash (architect)|John Nash]] on the site of a house and garden belonging to a Lady Hutton; the intersection was then known as Regent Circus South (just as Oxford Circus was known as Regent Circus North) and it did not begin to be known as Piccadilly Circus until the mid 1880s, with the rebuilding of the Regent Street Quadrant and the construction of Shaftesbury Avenue. In the same period the circus lost its circular form.<ref>'The rebuilding of Piccadilly Circus and the Regent Street Quadrant', in Survey of London: Volumes 31 and 32, St James Westminster, Part 2, ed. F H W Sheppard (London, 1963), pp. 85-100. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/survey-london/vols31-2/pt2/pp85-100 [accessed 26 November 2019].</ref>

[[File:Piccadillycircus1896.gif|left|thumb|Piccadilly Circus in 1896, with a view towards [[Leicester Square]] via Coventry Street. [[London Pavilion]] is on the left, and [[Criterion Theatre]] on the right.]]
The junction has been a very busy traffic interchange since construction, as it lies at the centre of [[Theatreland]] and handles exit traffic from Piccadilly, which [[Charles Dickens Jr.]] described in 1879: "Piccadilly, the great thoroughfare leading from the Haymarket and [[Regent Street|Regent-<!--SIC-->street]] westward to [[Hyde Park Corner|Hyde Park-<!--SIC-->corner]], is the nearest approach to the [[Paris]]ian boulevard of which London can boast."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Massengale |first1=John |last2=Dover |first2=Victor |title=Street Design: The Secret to Great Cities and Towns |date=2014 |publisher=Wiley |page=122}}</ref>

[[File:Piccadilly_Circus_1908.jpg|thumb|London's Piccadilly Circus in 1908.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://coololdphotos.com/great-photo-of-londons-piccadilly-circus-in-1908/|title=Great Photo of London's Piccadilly Circus in 1908|last=Tom|date=16 September 2015|website=Cool Old Photos|language=en-US|access-date=3 March 2019}}</ref> On the left is the old County Fire Office.]]
[[Piccadilly Circus tube station]] was opened on 10 March 1906, on the [[Bakerloo line]], and on the [[Piccadilly line]] in December of that year. In 1928, the station was extensively rebuilt to handle an increase in traffic. The junction's first electric advertisements appeared in 1910, and, from 1923, electric billboards were set up on the facade of the [[London Pavilion]]. Electric street lamps, however, did not replace the gas ones until 1932.<ref>Marshall 1972, pp. 139–40.</ref> The circus became a one-way roundabout on 19 July 1926.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/CS186194662/TTDA?u=kccl&sid=TTDA&xid=7048bf9d |title=One-Way Traffic |work=[[The Times]] |date=6 July 1926 |issue=44316 |page=11 |access-date= 24 April 2020}}</ref> Traffic lights were first installed on 3 August 1926.

[[File:London , Kodachrome by Chalmers Butterfield.jpg|thumb|left|Piccadilly Circus in 1949]]

During World War II many servicemen's clubs in the West End served American soldiers based in Britain. So many prostitutes roamed the area approaching the soldiers that they received the nickname "Piccadilly Commandos", and both [[Scotland Yard]] and the [[Foreign Office]] discussed possible damage to Anglo-American relations.<ref name="tweedie20051101">{{cite news | url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4198026/How-our-Piccadilly-Commandos-had-the-GIs-surrounded.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220112/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4198026/How-our-Piccadilly-Commandos-had-the-GIs-surrounded.html |archive-date=12 January 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live | title=How our Piccadilly Commandos had the GIs surrounded | work=The Telegraph | date=1 November 2005 | access-date=21 September 2013 | author=Tweedie, Neil}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

[[File:Piccadilly Circus in London 1962 Brighter.jpg|thumb|right|Piccadilly Circus in 1962]]
At the start of the 1960s, it was determined that the Circus needed to be redeveloped to allow for greater traffic flow. In 1962, [[William Graham Holford|Lord Holford]] presented a plan which would have created a "double-decker" Piccadilly Circus; the upper deck would have been an elevated pedestrian concourse linking the buildings around the perimeter of the Circus, with the lower deck being solely for traffic, most of the ground-level pedestrian areas having been removed to allow for greater vehicle flow. This concept was kept alive throughout the rest of the 1960s. A final scheme in 1972 proposed three octagonal towers (the highest {{convert|240|ft|m}} tall) to replace the Trocadero, the Criterion and the "Monico" buildings.{{sfn|Pevsner|Cherry|1973|p=756}} The plans were permanently rejected by [[Sir Keith Joseph]] and [[Ernest Marples]]; the key reason given was that Holford's scheme only allowed for a 20% increase in traffic, and the Government required 50%.

[[File:Photography by Victor Albert Grigas (1919-2017) Istanbul to London 3-70 March 1970 00387 (47702143251).jpg|thumb|left|Piccadilly Circus in 1970]]
The Holford plan is referenced in the short-form [[documentary film]] [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-su9tq_-OJQ "Goodbye, Piccadilly"], produced by the [[Rank Organisation]] in 1967 as part of their ''[[Look at Life (film series)|Look at Life]]'' series when it was still seriously expected that Holford's recommendations would be acted upon. Piccadilly Circus has since escaped major redevelopment, apart from extensive ground-level pedestrianisation around its south side in the 1980s.

[[File:Piccadilly circus 1992 07.jpg|thumb|right|Signs in 1992]]
The Circus has been targeted by [[Irish republican]] terrorists multiple times. On 24 June 1939 an explosion occurred, although no injuries were caused.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2008/feb/04/nationalarchives.uknews4|title=Toilet attendant saved London from IRA bomb|work=[[The Guardian]]|date=4 February 2008|access-date=27 January 2019}}</ref> [[1974 London pillar box bombings|On 25 November 1974]] a bomb injured 16 people.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/othelem/chron/ch74.htm#Nov|title=CAIN: Chronology of the Conflict 1974}}</ref> A 2 lb bomb exploded on 6 October 1992, injuring five people.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/two-bombs-bring-chaos-to-london-1556056.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220526/https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/two-bombs-bring-chaos-to-london-1556056.html |archive-date=26 May 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|title=Two bombs bring chaos to London|work=[[The Independent]]|date=8 October 1992|access-date=27 January 2019}}</ref>

The [[Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain]] at Piccadilly Circus was erected in 1893 to commemorate the philanthropic works of [[Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury]]. It was removed from the Circus twice and moved from the centre once. The first time was in 1922, so that [[Charles Holden]]'s new tube station could be built directly below it. The fountain returned in 1931. During the [[Second World War]], the fountain was removed for the second time and replaced by advertising hoardings. It was returned again in 1948. When the Circus underwent reconstruction work in the late 1980s, the entire fountain was moved from the centre of the junction at the beginning of Shaftesbury Avenue to its present position at the southwestern corner.<ref>{{cite book|author1=[[Ben Weinreb|Weinreb, Ben]] |author2=[[Christopher Hibbert|Hibbert, Christopher]] |title=[[The London Encyclopaedia]]|edition=reprint|year=1992|page=271|publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers|Macmillan]]}}</ref>