SIR,--I see that there is a senseless outcry against the proposed plan
of the Board of Works to build on a portion of the open space now
available at Piccadilly Circus, and I write to protest against the
pestilent heresy that prompts it. What, Sir, I ask, has the Board to do
with "beauty"? As a public body, responsible to the ratepayers, they
have only one thing to consider, and that is, "utility." Why, then,
should they not seize upon every vacant inch of ground at their
disposal, and convert it into a Central Pig Market? Such a thing could
not be better installed than at the end of Regent Street, and here is
the very site for it. Expecting to see some active steps taken to set
this on foot, I am, Sir, your obedient Servant, NOTHING IF NOT
PRACTICAL.
SIR,--Your Correspondent, "ONE WITH AN EYE TO THE SUBLIME," is right in
attacking the gross Vandalism of the Board, but, in his proposed scheme
for statues and fountains, he falls miserably short of what is really
wanted to make Piccadilly Circus what it should be; namely, the grandest
open space in Europe. The ground should be cleared from St. James's
Church to Leicester Square, East and West, and opened up southwards the
whole width to the Duke of York's Column. Upon the space so secured, a
white marble pavement, broken only by colossal water-works, groups of
classic statuary, splendid monuments, and groves of orange-trees, should
be laid, and here, to the plash of silvery cascades, utterly
outrivalling the greatest display of which Versailles is capable, and,
to the music of half-a-dozen separate military bands, the jaded Londoner
should disport himself from morn to dewy eve. You ask as to the cost.
Well, a rate of fifteen shillings in the pound for a hundred and fifty
years would soon settle that, and I am sure there is not a taxpayer in
the parishes immediately concerned who would not willingly jump at this
trifling charge to see the scheme realised. At least, this is the view
at the present moment taken of the matter by Yours, obediently, AN
ENTHUSIASTIC OUTSIDER.
SIR,--They are talking of pulling down St. Mary-le-Strand and wish to
cut off the steps of St. Martin's. Why not _move them both_ and set them
up back to back on the disputed ground? One could face Piccadilly and
the other look up Coventry Street. The idea is a happy one and has the
merit of bringing together in juxtaposition the works of our two great
_Renaissance_ architects GIBBS and WREN. I offer it to your artistic
readers for what it is worth and beg to subscribe myself, Yours,
tentatively, A LOCAL MECAENAS.
Sir,--There was some time since some sensible talk of erecting a
gigantic iron tower in the neighbourhood of the St. Martin's Baths and
Wash Houses. Surely no finer site could be found for such an erection
than that provided by Piccadilly Circus. Here, with a sufficiently ample
base, such for instance as could be furnished by the entire available
space in question, a thing of the kind might rise to, say, the height of
1,000 feet and have one, two or even three theatres at the top. Several
restaurants could be accommodated on the upper floors, and the lower 500
feet might be partly relegated to a sausage manufactory and partly let
out in chambers. The whole would afford a pleasing and striking _coup
d'oeil_ to any one approaching it either from Waterloo Place,
Piccadilly or Shaftesbury Avenue, and prove, I think, a happy compromise
and solution of the somewhat vexed question of the utilisation of the
disputed space. At least, so the matter strikes your suggestive
Correspondent, A HOPEFUL AEDILE.
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