Soho
Encyclopedia
Soho is an area of the City of Westminster
and part of the West End of London
. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shop
s as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable transformation. It now is predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry
venues.
as a royal park for the Palace of Whitehall
. The name "Soho" first appears in the 17th century. Most authorities believe that the name derives from a former hunting cry. The Duke of Monmouth
used "soho" as a rallying call for his men at the Battle of Sedgemoor
, half a century after the name was first used for this area of London.
In the 1660s the Crown granted Soho Fields to Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans
. He leased 19 of its 22 acres (89,030.9 m²) to Joseph Girle, who gained permission to build and promptly passed his lease and licence to bricklayer Richard Frith in 1677. Frith began the development. In 1698 William III
granted the Crown freehold of most of this area to William, Earl of Portland
. Meanwhile the southern part of what became the parish of St. Anne, Soho, was sold by the Crown in parcels in the 16th and 17th centuries, with part going to Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester
.
Despite the best intentions of landowners such as the Earls of Leicester and Portland to develop the land on the grand scale of neighbouring Bloomsbury
, Marylebone
and Mayfair
, Soho never became a fashionable area for the rich. Immigrants settled in the area, especially French Huguenots who poured in in 1688, after which the area became known as London's French quarter.
The French church in Soho Square was founded by Huguenots in the 17th century. By the mid-18th century, the aristocrats who had been living in Soho Square or Gerrard Street had moved away. Soho's character stems partly from the ensuing neglect by rich and fashionable London, and the lack of redevelopment that characterized the neighbouring areas.
By the mid-19th century, all respectable families had moved away, and prostitutes, music halls and small theatres had moved in. In the early 20th century, foreign nationals opened cheap eating-houses, and the neighbourhood became a fashionable place to eat for intellectuals, writers and artists. From the 1930s to the early 1960s, Soho folklore states that the pubs of Soho were packed every night with drunken writers, poets and artists, many of whom never stayed sober long enough to become successful; and it was also during this period that the Soho pub landlords established themselves.
A detailed mural depicting Soho characters, including writer Dylan Thomas
and jazz musician George Melly
, is in Broadwick Street, at the junction with Carnaby Street.
In fiction, Robert Louis Stevenson
had Dr. Henry Jekyll set up a home for Edward Hyde in Soho in his novel, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
The Soho name has been imitated by other entertainment and restaurant districts such as Soho, Hong Kong
; SoHo, New York
; and Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires.
A significant event in the history of epidemiology
and public health
was Dr. John Snow
's study of an 1854 outbreak of cholera
in Soho. He identified the cause of the outbreak as water from the public water pump
located at the junction of Broad Street (now Broadwick Street
) and Cambridge Street (now Lexington Street), close to the rear wall of what is today the John Snow public house
.
John Snow mapped the addresses of the sick, and noted that they were mostly people whose nearest access to water was the Broad Street pump. He persuaded the authorities to remove the handle of the pump, thus preventing any more of the infected water from being collected. The spring below the pump was later found to have been contaminated with sewage. This is an early example of epidemiology
, public health medicine and the application of science—the germ theory of disease
— in real time.
Science writer Steven Johnson describes the 2006 appearance of places related to the Broad Street Pump cholera outbreak:
A replica of the pump, with a memorial plaque and without a handle (to signify John Snow's action to halt the outbreak) was erected near the location of the original pump.
, generally revered as the fountainhead of modern jazz in the UK. It was located at 41 Great Windmill Street. The Harmony Inn was an unsavoury cafe and hang-out for musicians on Archer Street operating during the 1940s and 1950s. It stayed open very late and attracted jazz fans from the nearby Cy Laurie
Jazz Club.
Soho was mentioned in Brecht
's famous song "Mack The Knife
":
The Ken Colyer
Band's 51 Club (Great Newport Street) opened in the early fifties. Blues guitarist and harmonica player Cyril Davies
and guitarist Bob Watson launched the London Skiffle Centre, London's first skiffle
club, on the first floor of the Roundhouse pub on Wardour Street in 1952.
In the early 1950s, Soho became the centre of the beatnik
culture in London. Coffee bars such as Le Macabre (Wardour Street), which had coffin-shaped tables, fostered beat poetry, jive dance and political debate. The Goings On, located in Archer Street, was a Sunday afternoon club, organised by Liverpool beat poets Pete Brown
, Johnny Byrne and Spike Hawkins
, that opened in January 1966. For the rest of the week, it operated as an illegal gambling den. Other "beat" coffee bars in Soho included the French, Le Grande, Stockpot, Melbray, Universal, La Roca, Freight Train (Skiffle
star Chas McDevitt
's place), El Toro, Picasso, Las Vegas, and the Moka Bar.
The 2i's Coffee Bar was probably the first rock club in Europe, opened in 1956 (59 Old Compton Street), and soon Soho was the centre of the fledgling rock scene in London. Clubs included the Flamingo Club
("which started in 1952 as Jazz at the Mapleton"), La Discothèque, Whisky a Go Go
, Ronan O'Rahilly
's ("of pirate radio station, Radio Caroline
fame") The Scene in 1963 (near the Windmill Theatre
in Ham Yard - formally The Piccadilly Club) and jazz clubs like Ronnie Scott's (opened in 1959 at 39 Gerrard Street and moved to 47 Frith Street in 1965) and the 100 Club.
Soho's Wardour Street was the home of the legendary Marquee Club
(90 Wardour Street) which opened in 1958 and where the Rolling Stones first performed in July 1962. Eric Clapton
and Brian Jones
both lived for a time in Soho, sharing a flat with future rock publicist, Tony Brainsby
.
Later, the Sex Pistols lived above number 6 Denmark Sreet, and recorded their first demos there.
to the north, Regent Street
to the west, Leicester Square
to the south and Charing Cross Road
to the east. However apart from Oxford Street, all of these roads are 19th-century metropolitan improvements, so they are not Soho's original boundaries. It has never been an administrative unit, with formally defined boundaries. The area to the west is known as Mayfair
, to the north Fitzrovia
, to the east St Giles
and Covent Garden
, and to the south St James's. According to the Soho Society, Chinatown
, the area between Leicester Square
to the south and Shaftesbury Avenue to the north, is part of Soho, although some consider it a separate area.
It has clubs, including the former Chinawhite
nightclub; public house
s; bars; restaurants; a few sex shops scattered amongst them; and late-night coffee shops that give the streets an "open-all-night" feel at the weekends. Many Soho weekends are busy enough to warrant closing off of some of the streets to vehicles; Westminster Council pedestrianised parts of Soho in the mid-1990s, but later removed much of it, apparently after complaints of loss of trade from local businesses.
Record shops cluster in the area around Berwick Street, with shops such as Blackmarket Records and Vinyl Junkies. Soho is also the home of London's main gay village
, around Old Compton Street
, where there are dozens of businesses thriving on the pink pound. On 30 April 1999, the Admiral Duncan pub
on Old Compton Street, which serves the gay community, was damaged by a nail bomb
planted by neo-Nazi David Copeland
. It left three dead (two of whom were heterosexual) and 30 injured.
Soho is home to religious and spiritual groups, notably St Anne's Church on Dean Street (damaged by a V1 flying bomb during World War II, and re-opened in 1990), St Patrick's Church in Soho Square
(founded by Irish immigrants in the 19th century), City Gates Church with their centre in Greens Court, the Hare Krishna
Temple off Soho Square and a small mosque on Berwick Street.
On Valentine's Day 2006, a campaign was launched to drive business back into the heart of Soho. The campaign, called I Love Soho, was created by marketing manager Prannay Rughani (who also heads up the Paramount Pictures
licensed multi-million pound Cheers bars in Europe, and in addition, the Soho Clubs and Bars Group), and features a web-site (www.ilovesoho.co.uk). The campaign was launched at the former Raymond's Revue Bar in Walkers Court made famous by its strip licence and neons, with such celebrities in attendance as Charlotte Church
, Amy Winehouse
and Paris Hilton
. I Love Soho is backed by the former Mayor of London
Ken Livingstone
, the Soho Society, Westminster Council and Visit London.
Gerrard Street is the centre of London's Chinatown
, a mix of import companies and restaurants (including Lee Ho Fook's, mentioned in Warren Zevon
's song "Werewolves of London
"). Street festivals are held throughout the year, most notably on the Chinese New Year
.
industry. It is home to Soho Theatre
, built in 2000 to present new plays and stand-up comedy
. The British Board of Film Classification
, formerly known as the British Board of Film Censors, can be found in Soho Square
.
Soho is criss-crossed by a rooftop telecommunication network, and below ground level with fibre optics making up Sohonet
, which connects the Soho media and post-production community
to British film studio locations such as Pinewood Studios
and Shepperton Studios
, and to other major production centres such as Rome, New York City, Los Angeles, Sydney and Wellington, New Zealand.
There are also plans by Westminster Council to deploy high-bandwidth Wi-Fi
networks in Soho as part of a programme to further encourage the development of the area as a centre for media and technology industries.
The Soho area has been at the heart of London's sex industry
for over 200 years; between 1778 and 1801 21 Soho Square
was location of The White House, an infamous magic brothel
described by Henry Mayhew
as "a notorious place of ill-fame".
Before the introduction of the Street Offences Act in 1959, prostitutes packed the streets and alleys of Soho and by the early sixties the area was home to nearly a hundred strip clubs and almost every doorway in Soho had little postcards advertising "Large Chest for Sale" or "French Lessons Given". These were known as "walk ups". With prostitution driven off the streets, many clubs such as The Blue Lagoon became prostitution fronts. The Metropolitan Police
Vice squad
at that time suffered from corrupt police officers involved with enforcing organised crime control of the area, but simultaneously accepting "back-handers" or bribes.
Clip joint
s also surfaced in the 1960s; these establishments sold coloured water as champagne with the promise of sex to follow, thus fleecing tourists looking for a "good time". Also in 1960, London's first sex cinema theatre, the Compton Cinema Club (a membership only club to get around the law) opened at 56 Old Compton Street. It was owned by Michael Klinger
and Tony Tenser
who produced many of the early Roman Polanski
films such as Cul-de-sac (1966). Michael Klinger also owned the Heaven and Hell hostess club (which had earlier been just a beatnik club) across the road and a few doors down from the 2I's on the corner of Old Compton Street and Dean Street.
Harrison Marks
, a "glamour photographer" and girlie magazine publisher, had a photographic gallery located at No. 4 Gerrard Street and published several magazines such as Kamera, which sold from the late fifties till 1968. The model Pamela Green
prompted him to take up nude photography, and she remained the creative force in their business until they split in 1967. The content, however, by today's standard is very innocent.
By the mid-seventies, the sex shops had grown from the handful opened by Carl Slack in the early sixties to a total of fifty-nine sex shops which then dominated the square mile. Some had secret backrooms selling hardcore photographs, Beeline Books (published in America by David Zentner) and Olympia Press
editions.
By the 1980s, purges of the police force along with a tightening of licensing controls by the City of Westminster
led to a crackdown on these illegal premises. By 2000, a substantial relaxation of general censorship
, and the licensing or closing of unlicensed sex shop
s had reduced the red-light area to just a small area around Brewer Street and Berwick Street. Several strip club
s in the area were reported in London's Evening Standard
newspaper in February 2003 to still be rip-offs (known as clip joint
s), aiming to intimidate customers into paying for absurdly over-priced drinks and very mild 'erotic entertainment'. Prostitution
is still widespread in parts of Soho, with several buildings used as brothels, and there is a persistent problem with drug dealing on some street corners.
Soho continues to be the centre of the sex industry
in London, and features numerous licenced sex shop
s. There is a clip joint
on Tisbury Court and an adult cinema nearby. Prostitutes are widely available, operating in studio flats. These are sign-posted by fluorescent "model" signs at street level.
was notorious for its risqué nude tableaux vivants, in which the models had to remain motionless to avoid censorship. It opened in June 1931 and was the only theatre in London which never closed, except for the twelve compulsory days between 4 and 16 September 1939. It stood on the site of a windmill that dated back to the reign of Charles II
until late in the 18th century. The theatre was sold to the Compton Cinema Group. It closed on 31 October 1964 and was reconstructed as a cinema and casino.
was a small theatre specialising in striptease and nude dancing. It was owned by Paul Raymond and opened on 21 April 1958. The most striking feature of the Revuebar was the huge brightly lit sign declaring it to be the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment".
In the early eighties, the upstairs became known as the Boulevard Theatre and was used by a small group of alternative comedians called "The Comic Strip
" before they found wider recognition with the series The Comic Strip Presents on Channel 4
. It was also used as a "straight" theatre venue for a series of play premieres that included Diary of a Somebody (the Joe Orton
diaries) by John Lahr
, a rock opera version of Macbeth
by Howard Goodall
and The Lizard King (the Jim Morrison
play) by Jay Jeff Jones.
The name and control of the theatre (but crucially, not the property itself) was bought by Gerald Simi in 1997. Gradually the theatre's fortunes waned, with Simi citing rising rent demands from Raymond as the cause.
The Revuebar closed on 10 June 2004 and became a gay bar and cabaret venue called Too2Much, designed by Anarchitect. In November 2006, it changed its name to Soho Revue Bar. The launch party included performances by Boy George
, Antony Costa
and Marcella Detroit
. On 29 January 2009, the Soho Revue Bar closed.
, Piccadilly Circus
, Tottenham Court Road
, Leicester Square
and Covent Garden
.
Night-time traffic surveys carried by Westminster Council between 10 pm and 4 am indicate that Old Compton Street, Dean Street, and Frith Street experienced the highest levels of traffic within the Soho area. The busiest location was Old Compton Street between the junctions with Dean and Frith Street, which experienced 'medium' levels of traffic for four of the six hours of the survey, including between 2 am and 4 am.
Westminster Council stated that the narrow footways can become very congested at night, particularly at weekends, with people drinking in the street, eating outside takeaways, queuing at entertainment venues or to use bank ATMs, and people passing through the area. There are a number of premises with tables and chairs located on restricted pavement areas and this can cause a conflict between pedestrians and traffic.
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
and part of the West End of London
West End of London
The West End of London is an area of central London, containing many of the city's major tourist attractions, shops, businesses, government buildings, and entertainment . Use of the term began in the early 19th century to describe fashionable areas to the west of Charing Cross...
. Long established as an entertainment district, for much of the 20th century Soho had a reputation for sex shop
Sex shop
A sex shop, erotic shop is a shop that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, clothing, pornography, and other related products...
s as well as night life and film industry. Since the early 1980s, the area has undergone considerable transformation. It now is predominantly a fashionable district of upmarket restaurants and media offices, with only a small remnant of sex industry
Sex industry
The sex industry consists of businesses which either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment...
venues.
History
The area of Soho was grazing farmland until 1536, when it was taken by Henry VIIIHenry VIII of England
Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...
as a royal park for the Palace of Whitehall
Palace of Whitehall
The Palace of Whitehall was the main residence of the English monarchs in London from 1530 until 1698 when all except Inigo Jones's 1622 Banqueting House was destroyed by fire...
. The name "Soho" first appears in the 17th century. Most authorities believe that the name derives from a former hunting cry. The Duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth
James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, 1st Duke of Buccleuch, KG, PC , was an English nobleman. Originally called James Crofts or James Fitzroy, he was born in Rotterdam in the Netherlands, the eldest illegitimate son of Charles II and his mistress, Lucy Walter...
used "soho" as a rallying call for his men at the Battle of Sedgemoor
Battle of Sedgemoor
The Battle of Sedgemoor was fought on 6 July 1685 and took place at Westonzoyland near Bridgwater in Somerset, England.It was the final battle of the Monmouth Rebellion and followed a series of skirmishes around south west England between the forces of James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth and the...
, half a century after the name was first used for this area of London.
In the 1660s the Crown granted Soho Fields to Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans
Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of St Albans
Henry Jermyn, 1st Earl of Saint Albans KG was an English politician and courtier. He sat in the in the House of Commons at various times between 1625 and 1643 when he was raised to the peerage as Baron Jermyn...
. He leased 19 of its 22 acres (89,030.9 m²) to Joseph Girle, who gained permission to build and promptly passed his lease and licence to bricklayer Richard Frith in 1677. Frith began the development. In 1698 William III
William III of England
William III & II was a sovereign Prince of Orange of the House of Orange-Nassau by birth. From 1672 he governed as Stadtholder William III of Orange over Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel of the Dutch Republic. From 1689 he reigned as William III over England and Ireland...
granted the Crown freehold of most of this area to William, Earl of Portland
William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland
Hans William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, Baron Bentinck of Diepenheim and Schoonheten, KG, PC was a Dutch and English nobleman who became in an early stage the favourite of William, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder in the Netherlands, and future King of England. He was steady, sensible, modest...
. Meanwhile the southern part of what became the parish of St. Anne, Soho, was sold by the Crown in parcels in the 16th and 17th centuries, with part going to Robert Sidney, Earl of Leicester
Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester
Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester was an English aristocrat and diplomat.-Life:He was the son of Robert Sidney, 1st Earl of Leicester, and his first wife, Barbara Gamage...
.
Despite the best intentions of landowners such as the Earls of Leicester and Portland to develop the land on the grand scale of neighbouring Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
-Places:* Bloomsbury is an area in central London.* Bloomsbury , related local government unit* Bloomsbury, New Jersey, New Jersey, USA* Bloomsbury , listed on the NRHP in Maryland...
, Marylebone
Marylebone
Marylebone is an affluent inner-city area of central London, located within the City of Westminster. It is sometimes written as St. Marylebone or Mary-le-bone....
and Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
, Soho never became a fashionable area for the rich. Immigrants settled in the area, especially French Huguenots who poured in in 1688, after which the area became known as London's French quarter.
The French church in Soho Square was founded by Huguenots in the 17th century. By the mid-18th century, the aristocrats who had been living in Soho Square or Gerrard Street had moved away. Soho's character stems partly from the ensuing neglect by rich and fashionable London, and the lack of redevelopment that characterized the neighbouring areas.
By the mid-19th century, all respectable families had moved away, and prostitutes, music halls and small theatres had moved in. In the early 20th century, foreign nationals opened cheap eating-houses, and the neighbourhood became a fashionable place to eat for intellectuals, writers and artists. From the 1930s to the early 1960s, Soho folklore states that the pubs of Soho were packed every night with drunken writers, poets and artists, many of whom never stayed sober long enough to become successful; and it was also during this period that the Soho pub landlords established themselves.
A detailed mural depicting Soho characters, including writer Dylan Thomas
Dylan Thomas
Dylan Marlais Thomas was a Welsh poet and writer, Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 January 2008. who wrote exclusively in English. In addition to poetry, he wrote short stories and scripts for film and radio, which he often performed himself...
and jazz musician George Melly
George Melly
Alan George Heywood Melly was an English jazz and blues singer, critic, writer and lecturer. From 1965 to 1973 he was a film and television critic for The Observer and lectured on art history, with an emphasis on surrealism.-Early life and career:He was born in Liverpool and was educated at Stowe...
, is in Broadwick Street, at the junction with Carnaby Street.
In fiction, Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Stevenson
Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson was a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer. His best-known books include Treasure Island, Kidnapped, and Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde....
had Dr. Henry Jekyll set up a home for Edward Hyde in Soho in his novel, Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.
The Soho name has been imitated by other entertainment and restaurant districts such as Soho, Hong Kong
Soho, Hong Kong
The Soho district in Hong Kong is an entertainment zone located in Central and bordering Sheung Wan, within Central...
; SoHo, New York
SoHo
SoHo is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City, notable for being the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, and also, more recently, for the wide variety of stores and shops ranging from trendy boutiques to outlets of upscale national and international chain stores...
; and Palermo Soho, Buenos Aires.
Broad Street pump
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
and public health
Public health
Public health is "the science and art of preventing disease, prolonging life and promoting health through the organized efforts and informed choices of society, organizations, public and private, communities and individuals" . It is concerned with threats to health based on population health...
was Dr. John Snow
John Snow (physician)
John Snow was an English physician and a leader in the adoption of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered to be one of the fathers of epidemiology, because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, England, in 1854.-Early life and education:Snow was born 15 March...
's study of an 1854 outbreak of cholera
Cholera
Cholera is an infection of the small intestine that is caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. The main symptoms are profuse watery diarrhea and vomiting. Transmission occurs primarily by drinking or eating water or food that has been contaminated by the diarrhea of an infected person or the feces...
in Soho. He identified the cause of the outbreak as water from the public water pump
Water Pump
Water Pump is one of the neighbourhoods of Gulberg Town in Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan. It is near main Water Pump that supplies fresh water to the city of Karachi....
located at the junction of Broad Street (now Broadwick Street
Broadwick Street
Broadwick Street is a street in Soho, City of Westminster, London. It runs for 0.18 mile approximately west-east between Marshall Street and Wardour Street, crossing Berwick Street....
) and Cambridge Street (now Lexington Street), close to the rear wall of what is today the John Snow public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
.
John Snow mapped the addresses of the sick, and noted that they were mostly people whose nearest access to water was the Broad Street pump. He persuaded the authorities to remove the handle of the pump, thus preventing any more of the infected water from being collected. The spring below the pump was later found to have been contaminated with sewage. This is an early example of epidemiology
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is the study of health-event, health-characteristic, or health-determinant patterns in a population. It is the cornerstone method of public health research, and helps inform policy decisions and evidence-based medicine by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive...
, public health medicine and the application of science—the germ theory of disease
Germ theory of disease
The germ theory of disease, also called the pathogenic theory of medicine, is a theory that proposes that microorganisms are the cause of many diseases...
— in real time.
Science writer Steven Johnson describes the 2006 appearance of places related to the Broad Street Pump cholera outbreak:
A replica of the pump, with a memorial plaque and without a handle (to signify John Snow's action to halt the outbreak) was erected near the location of the original pump.
Music scene
The music scene in Soho can be traced back to 1948 and Club ElevenClub Eleven
Club Eleven was a nightclub located in London between 1948 and 1950. Despite being in business for only two years, the club played a significant role in the early history of British bebop, a form of modern jazz....
, generally revered as the fountainhead of modern jazz in the UK. It was located at 41 Great Windmill Street. The Harmony Inn was an unsavoury cafe and hang-out for musicians on Archer Street operating during the 1940s and 1950s. It stayed open very late and attracted jazz fans from the nearby Cy Laurie
Cy Laurie
Cyril "Cy" Laurie was an English jazz clarinetist and bandleader.Laure was an autodidact on clarinet. He put together his own band in 1947; George Melly debuted in this ensemble in 1948...
Jazz Club.
Soho was mentioned in Brecht
Brecht
Brecht is a municipality located in the Belgian province of Antwerp. The municipality comprises the towns of Brecht proper, Sint-Job-in't-Goor and Sint-Lenaarts. On January 1, 2006 Brecht had a total population of 26,464...
's famous song "Mack The Knife
Mack the Knife
"Mack the Knife" or "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", originally "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer", is a song composed by Kurt Weill with lyrics by Bertolt Brecht for their music drama Die Dreigroschenoper, or, as it is known in English, The Threepenny Opera. It premiered in Berlin in 1928 at the...
":
The Ken Colyer
Ken Colyer
Kenneth Colyer was a British jazz trumpeter and cornetist, devoted totally to New Orleans jazz. His band was also known for skiffle interludes.-Biography:...
Band's 51 Club (Great Newport Street) opened in the early fifties. Blues guitarist and harmonica player Cyril Davies
Cyril Davies
Cyril Davies was one of the first British blues harmonica players and blues musician.-Biography:Born at St Mildred's, 15 Hawthorn Drive, Willowbank, Denham, Buckinghamshire, near London, he was the son of William Albert Davies, a labourer, and his wife Margaret Mary...
and guitarist Bob Watson launched the London Skiffle Centre, London's first skiffle
Skiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
club, on the first floor of the Roundhouse pub on Wardour Street in 1952.
In the early 1950s, Soho became the centre of the beatnik
Beatnik
Beatnik was a media stereotype of the 1950s and early 1960s that displayed the more superficial aspects of the Beat Generation literary movement of the 1950s and violent film images, along with a cartoonish depiction of the real-life people and the spiritual quest in Jack Kerouac's autobiographical...
culture in London. Coffee bars such as Le Macabre (Wardour Street), which had coffin-shaped tables, fostered beat poetry, jive dance and political debate. The Goings On, located in Archer Street, was a Sunday afternoon club, organised by Liverpool beat poets Pete Brown
Pete Brown
Peter Ronald Brown is an English performance poet and lyricist.Best known for his collaborations with Jack Bruce, Brown also worked with The Battered Ornaments, formed his own group Pete Brown & Piblokto!, and worked with Graham Bond and Phil Ryan. Brown also writes film scores and formed a film...
, Johnny Byrne and Spike Hawkins
Spike Hawkins
Spike Hawkins is a British poet, best known for his 'Three Pig Poems', included in his one book, the Fulcrum Press collection The Lost Fire-Brigade . He was part of the poetry scene in Liverpool during the 1960s and much of his output upholds the values of that group; short, modernistic, humorous...
, that opened in January 1966. For the rest of the week, it operated as an illegal gambling den. Other "beat" coffee bars in Soho included the French, Le Grande, Stockpot, Melbray, Universal, La Roca, Freight Train (Skiffle
Skiffle
Skiffle is a type of popular music with jazz, blues, folk, roots and country influences, usually using homemade or improvised instruments. Originating as a term in the United States in the first half of the twentieth century, it became popular again in the UK in the 1950s, where it was mainly...
star Chas McDevitt
Chas McDevitt
Chas McDevitt is a British musician, one of the leading lights of the skiffle genre which was highly influential and popular in the United Kingdom in the mid-to-late 1950s....
's place), El Toro, Picasso, Las Vegas, and the Moka Bar.
The 2i's Coffee Bar was probably the first rock club in Europe, opened in 1956 (59 Old Compton Street), and soon Soho was the centre of the fledgling rock scene in London. Clubs included the Flamingo Club
Flamingo Club (London)
The Flamingo Club was a nightclub that operated in Soho, London, between 1952 and the late 1960s. It was located at 33-37 Wardour Street from 1957 onwards, and played an important role in the development of British rhythm and blues and jazz....
("which started in 1952 as Jazz at the Mapleton"), La Discothèque, Whisky a Go Go
Whisky a Go Go
The Whisky a Go Go is a nightclub in West Hollywood, California, United States. It is located at 8901 Sunset Boulevard, on the Sunset Strip.-History:...
, Ronan O'Rahilly
Ronan O'Rahilly
Ronan O'Rahilly is an Irish businessman best known for the creation of the offshore radio station, Radio Caroline.O'Rahilly's parents owned the private port of Greenore in Carlingford Lough, County Louth...
's ("of pirate radio station, Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline
Radio Caroline is an English radio station founded in 1964 by Ronan O'Rahilly to circumvent the record companies' control of popular music broadcasting in the United Kingdom and the BBC's radio broadcasting monopoly...
fame") The Scene in 1963 (near the Windmill Theatre
Windmill Theatre
The Windmill Theatre, later The Windmill International, was a variety and revue theatre in Great Windmill Street, London. The theatre was famous for its nude tableaux vivants...
in Ham Yard - formally The Piccadilly Club) and jazz clubs like Ronnie Scott's (opened in 1959 at 39 Gerrard Street and moved to 47 Frith Street in 1965) and the 100 Club.
Soho's Wardour Street was the home of the legendary Marquee Club
Marquee Club
The Marquee was a music club first located at 165 Oxford Street, London, England when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts.It was also the location of the first ever live performance by The Rolling Stones on 12 July 1962....
(90 Wardour Street) which opened in 1958 and where the Rolling Stones first performed in July 1962. Eric Clapton
Eric Clapton
Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English guitarist and singer-songwriter. Clapton is the only three-time inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: once as a solo artist, and separately as a member of The Yardbirds and Cream. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important and...
and Brian Jones
Brian Jones
Lewis Brian Hopkins Jones , known as Brian Jones, was an English musician and a founding member of the Rolling Stones....
both lived for a time in Soho, sharing a flat with future rock publicist, Tony Brainsby
Tony Brainsby
Tony Brainsby was a British publicist of the 1960s. His career spanned over thirty years, in which time he represented several notable rock acts, including Curved Air, The Small Faces, Sonny and Cher, Paul McCartney and Wings, Queen, Ron Wood and David Essex, as well as actress Quinn...
.
Later, the Sex Pistols lived above number 6 Denmark Sreet, and recorded their first demos there.
Geography
Soho has an area of approximately one square mile and may be thought of as bounded by Oxford StreetOxford Street
Oxford Street is a major thoroughfare in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, United Kingdom. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, as well as its most dense, and currently has approximately 300 shops. The street was formerly part of the London-Oxford road which began at Newgate,...
to the north, Regent Street
Regent Street
Regent Street is one of the major shopping streets in London's West End, well known to tourists and Londoners alike, and famous for its Christmas illuminations...
to the west, Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
to the south and Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road
Charing Cross Road is a street in central London running immediately north of St Martin-in-the-Fields to St Giles Circus and then becomes Tottenham Court Road...
to the east. However apart from Oxford Street, all of these roads are 19th-century metropolitan improvements, so they are not Soho's original boundaries. It has never been an administrative unit, with formally defined boundaries. The area to the west is known as Mayfair
Mayfair
Mayfair is an area of central London, within the City of Westminster.-History:Mayfair is named after the annual fortnight-long May Fair that took place on the site that is Shepherd Market today...
, to the north Fitzrovia
Fitzrovia
Fitzrovia is a neighbourhood in central London, near London's West End lying partly in the London Borough of Camden and partly in the City of Westminster ; and situated between Marylebone and Bloomsbury and north of Soho. It is characterised by its mixed-use of residential, business, retail,...
, to the east St Giles
St Giles, London
St Giles is a district of London, England. It is the location of the church of St Giles in the Fields, the Phoenix Garden and St Giles Circus. It is located at the southern tip of the London Borough of Camden and is part of the Midtown business improvement district.The combined parishes of St...
and Covent Garden
Covent Garden
Covent Garden is a district in London on the eastern fringes of the West End, between St. Martin's Lane and Drury Lane. It is associated with the former fruit and vegetable market in the central square, now a popular shopping and tourist site, and the Royal Opera House, which is also known as...
, and to the south St James's. According to the Soho Society, Chinatown
Chinatown, London
The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street...
, the area between Leicester Square
Leicester Square
Leicester Square is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. The Square lies within an area bound by Lisle Street, to the north; Charing Cross Road, to the east; Orange Street, to the south; and Whitcomb Street, to the west...
to the south and Shaftesbury Avenue to the north, is part of Soho, although some consider it a separate area.
Location in context
Soho today
Soho is a small, multicultural area of central London; a home to industry, commerce, culture and entertainment, as well as a residential area for both rich and poor.It has clubs, including the former Chinawhite
Chinawhite (nightclub)
Chinawhite is a high profile nightclub in central London. It is a regular haunt of many of the best known celebrities in the tabloids in the United Kingdom...
nightclub; public house
Public house
A public house, informally known as a pub, is a drinking establishment fundamental to the culture of Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. There are approximately 53,500 public houses in the United Kingdom. This number has been declining every year, so that nearly half of the smaller...
s; bars; restaurants; a few sex shops scattered amongst them; and late-night coffee shops that give the streets an "open-all-night" feel at the weekends. Many Soho weekends are busy enough to warrant closing off of some of the streets to vehicles; Westminster Council pedestrianised parts of Soho in the mid-1990s, but later removed much of it, apparently after complaints of loss of trade from local businesses.
Record shops cluster in the area around Berwick Street, with shops such as Blackmarket Records and Vinyl Junkies. Soho is also the home of London's main gay village
Gay village
A gay village is an urban geographic location with generally recognized boundaries where a large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people live or frequent...
, around Old Compton Street
Old Compton Street
Old Compton Street runs east-west through Soho, London, England.- History :The street was named after Henry Compton. who raised funds for a local parish church, eventually dedicated as St Anne's Church in 1686...
, where there are dozens of businesses thriving on the pink pound. On 30 April 1999, the Admiral Duncan pub
Admiral Duncan pub
The Admiral Duncan is a pub in Old Compton Street, Soho in the heart of London's gay district. It is named after Admiral Adam Duncan, who defeated the Dutch fleet at the Battle of Camperdown in 1797.- Bombing :...
on Old Compton Street, which serves the gay community, was damaged by a nail bomb
Nail bomb
The nail bomb is an anti-personnel explosive device packed with nails to increase its wounding ability. The nails act as shrapnel, leading almost certainly to greater loss of life and injury in inhabited areas than the explosives alone would. The nail bomb is also a type of flechette weapon...
planted by neo-Nazi David Copeland
David Copeland
David John Copeland is a former member of the British National Party and the National Socialist Movement, who became known as the "London Nail Bomber" after a 13-day bombing campaign in April 1999 aimed at London's black, Bangladeshi and gay communities.Over three successive weekends between 17...
. It left three dead (two of whom were heterosexual) and 30 injured.
Soho Square
Soho Square is a square in Soho, London, England, with a park and garden area at its centre that dates back to 1681. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, whose statue stands in the square. At the centre of the garden, there is a distinctive half-timbered gardener's hut...
(founded by Irish immigrants in the 19th century), City Gates Church with their centre in Greens Court, the Hare Krishna
International Society for Krishna Consciousness
The International Society for Krishna Consciousness , known colloquially as the Hare Krishna movement, is a Gaudiya Vaishnava religious organization. It was founded in 1966 in New York City by A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada...
Temple off Soho Square and a small mosque on Berwick Street.
On Valentine's Day 2006, a campaign was launched to drive business back into the heart of Soho. The campaign, called I Love Soho, was created by marketing manager Prannay Rughani (who also heads up the Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
licensed multi-million pound Cheers bars in Europe, and in addition, the Soho Clubs and Bars Group), and features a web-site (www.ilovesoho.co.uk). The campaign was launched at the former Raymond's Revue Bar in Walkers Court made famous by its strip licence and neons, with such celebrities in attendance as Charlotte Church
Charlotte Church
Charlotte Maria Church is a Welsh singer-songwriter, actress and television presenter. She rose to fame in childhood as a classical singer before branching into pop music in 2005. By 2007, she had sold more than 10 million records worldwide including over 5 million in the United States...
, Amy Winehouse
Amy Winehouse
Amy Jade Winehouse was an English singer-songwriter known for her powerful deep contralto vocals and her eclectic mix of musical genres including R&B, soul and jazz. Winehouse's 2003 debut album, Frank, was critically successful in the UK and was nominated for the Mercury Prize...
and Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton
Paris Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...
. I Love Soho is backed by the former Mayor of London
Mayor of London
The Mayor of London is an elected politician who, along with the London Assembly of 25 members, is accountable for the strategic government of Greater London. Conservative Boris Johnson has held the position since 4 May 2008...
Ken Livingstone
Ken Livingstone
Kenneth Robert "Ken" Livingstone is an English politician who is currently a member of the centrist to centre-left Labour Party...
, the Soho Society, Westminster Council and Visit London.
Gerrard Street is the centre of London's Chinatown
Chinatown, London
The name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street...
, a mix of import companies and restaurants (including Lee Ho Fook's, mentioned in Warren Zevon
Warren Zevon
Warren William Zevon was an American rock singer-songwriter and musician noted for including his sometimes sardonic opinions of life in his musical lyrics, composing songs that were sometimes humorous and often had political or historical themes.Zevon's work has often been praised by well-known...
's song "Werewolves of London
Werewolves of London
"Werewolves of London" is a rock song composed by LeRoy Marinell, Waddy Wachtel, and Warren Zevon and performed by Zevon. Included on Zevon's 1978 album Excitable Boy, it featured accompaniment by bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac.The single was released by Asylum as...
"). Street festivals are held throughout the year, most notably on the Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...
.
Theatre and film industry
Soho is near the heart of London's theatre area, and is a centre of the independent film and video industry as well as the television and film post-productionPost-production
Post-production is part of filmmaking and the video production process. It occurs in the making of motion pictures, television programs, radio programs, advertising, audio recordings, photography, and digital art...
industry. It is home to Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre
Soho Theatre is a theatre in the eponymous Soho district of the City of Westminster. It presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret....
, built in 2000 to present new plays and stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy
Stand-up comedy is a comedic art form. Usually, a comedian performs in front of a live audience, speaking directly to them. Their performances are sometimes filmed for later release via DVD, the internet, and television...
. The British Board of Film Classification
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
, formerly known as the British Board of Film Censors, can be found in Soho Square
Soho Square
Soho Square is a square in Soho, London, England, with a park and garden area at its centre that dates back to 1681. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, whose statue stands in the square. At the centre of the garden, there is a distinctive half-timbered gardener's hut...
.
Soho is criss-crossed by a rooftop telecommunication network, and below ground level with fibre optics making up Sohonet
Sohonet
Sohonet is a community-of-interest network for the television, film and media production community.Founded in 1995 by a group of Soho-based post-production companies, Sohonet links many of the British film studios to London's post-production community...
, which connects the Soho media and post-production community
Soho media and post-production community
Much of the British independent film, television and post-production industry is based around London's Soho area. Many of the people who work in the industry form a village-like community, with the various companies hiring and re-hiring one another's employees, and, like many other villages, having...
to British film studio locations such as Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios
Pinewood Studios is a major British film studio situated in Iver Heath, Buckinghamshire, approximately west of central London. The studios have played host to many productions over the years from huge blockbuster films to television shows to commercials to pop promos.The purchase of Shepperton...
and Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there...
, and to other major production centres such as Rome, New York City, Los Angeles, Sydney and Wellington, New Zealand.
There are also plans by Westminster Council to deploy high-bandwidth Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
networks in Soho as part of a programme to further encourage the development of the area as a centre for media and technology industries.
Soho and the sex industry
Sex industry
The sex industry consists of businesses which either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment...
for over 200 years; between 1778 and 1801 21 Soho Square
Manor House, 21 Soho Square
Manor House, 21 Soho Square is a Grade II listed building in the West End of London. It has 17th century origins but the existing structure dates from 1838...
was location of The White House, an infamous magic brothel
Brothel
Brothels are business establishments where patrons can engage in sexual activities with prostitutes. Brothels are known under a variety of names, including bordello, cathouse, knocking shop, whorehouse, strumpet house, sporting house, house of ill repute, house of prostitution, and bawdy house...
described by Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew
Henry Mayhew was an English social researcher, journalist, playwright and advocate of reform. He was one of the two founders of the satirical and humorous magazine Punch, and the magazine's joint-editor, with Mark Lemon, in its early days...
as "a notorious place of ill-fame".
Before the introduction of the Street Offences Act in 1959, prostitutes packed the streets and alleys of Soho and by the early sixties the area was home to nearly a hundred strip clubs and almost every doorway in Soho had little postcards advertising "Large Chest for Sale" or "French Lessons Given". These were known as "walk ups". With prostitution driven off the streets, many clubs such as The Blue Lagoon became prostitution fronts. The Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
Vice squad
Vice Squad
Vice Squad is a punk band formed in 1978 in Bristol, England. The band formed from two other local punk bands, The Contingent and TV Brakes. Songwriter and vocalist Beki Bondage was a founding member and is currently with the band, although there was a period of time when the band had a different...
at that time suffered from corrupt police officers involved with enforcing organised crime control of the area, but simultaneously accepting "back-handers" or bribes.
Clip joint
Clip joint
A clip joint or fleshpot is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor goods or services, or none, in return...
s also surfaced in the 1960s; these establishments sold coloured water as champagne with the promise of sex to follow, thus fleecing tourists looking for a "good time". Also in 1960, London's first sex cinema theatre, the Compton Cinema Club (a membership only club to get around the law) opened at 56 Old Compton Street. It was owned by Michael Klinger
Michael Klinger (producer)
Michael Klinger was a British film producer.Klinger was born in London. His father was a Polish-born tailor. Klinger was initially the owner of a strip club, but began a business association with Tony Tenser in 1960 after they had met following a publicity stunt organised by Tenser at a cinema he...
and Tony Tenser
Tony Tenser
Tony Tenser was an English-born film producer of Lithuanian-Jewish descent. He specialised in producing Exploitation film movies and founded his own production company Tigon British Film Productions in 1966, which also made more mainstream films such as Witchfinder General and other horror films...
who produced many of the early Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski is a French-Polish film director, producer, writer and actor. Having made films in Poland, Britain, France and the USA, he is considered one of the few "truly international filmmakers."...
films such as Cul-de-sac (1966). Michael Klinger also owned the Heaven and Hell hostess club (which had earlier been just a beatnik club) across the road and a few doors down from the 2I's on the corner of Old Compton Street and Dean Street.
Harrison Marks
Harrison Marks
George Harrison Marks was a British glamour photographer and director of nudist, and later, pornographic films who was active in the fields for several decades.-Kamera and Pamela Green:...
, a "glamour photographer" and girlie magazine publisher, had a photographic gallery located at No. 4 Gerrard Street and published several magazines such as Kamera, which sold from the late fifties till 1968. The model Pamela Green
Pamela Green
Pamela Green was an English glamour model and actress, best known at the end of the 1950s and early 1960s...
prompted him to take up nude photography, and she remained the creative force in their business until they split in 1967. The content, however, by today's standard is very innocent.
By the mid-seventies, the sex shops had grown from the handful opened by Carl Slack in the early sixties to a total of fifty-nine sex shops which then dominated the square mile. Some had secret backrooms selling hardcore photographs, Beeline Books (published in America by David Zentner) and Olympia Press
Olympia Press
Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane...
editions.
By the 1980s, purges of the police force along with a tightening of licensing controls by the City of Westminster
City of Westminster
The City of Westminster is a London borough occupying much of the central area of London, England, including most of the West End. It is located to the west of and adjoining the ancient City of London, directly to the east of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, and its southern boundary...
led to a crackdown on these illegal premises. By 2000, a substantial relaxation of general censorship
Censorship in the United Kingdom
Censorship in the United Kingdom has a long history with variously stringent and lax laws in place at different times. Censorship of motion pictures, video games and Internet sites hosted in the United Kingdom are considered to be among the strictest in the European Union, the strictest being...
, and the licensing or closing of unlicensed sex shop
Sex shop
A sex shop, erotic shop is a shop that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, clothing, pornography, and other related products...
s had reduced the red-light area to just a small area around Brewer Street and Berwick Street. Several strip club
Strip club
A strip club is an adult entertainment venue in which striptease or other erotic or exotic dance is regularly performed. Strip clubs typically adopt a nightclub or bar style, but can also adopt a theatre or cabaret-style....
s in the area were reported in London's Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
newspaper in February 2003 to still be rip-offs (known as clip joint
Clip joint
A clip joint or fleshpot is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor goods or services, or none, in return...
s), aiming to intimidate customers into paying for absurdly over-priced drinks and very mild 'erotic entertainment'. Prostitution
Prostitution
Prostitution is the act or practice of providing sexual services to another person in return for payment. The person who receives payment for sexual services is called a prostitute and the person who receives such services is known by a multitude of terms, including a "john". Prostitution is one of...
is still widespread in parts of Soho, with several buildings used as brothels, and there is a persistent problem with drug dealing on some street corners.
Soho continues to be the centre of the sex industry
Sex industry
The sex industry consists of businesses which either directly or indirectly provide sex-related products and services or adult entertainment...
in London, and features numerous licenced sex shop
Sex shop
A sex shop, erotic shop is a shop that sells products related to adult sexual or erotic entertainment, such as sex toys, lingerie, clothing, pornography, and other related products...
s. There is a clip joint
Clip joint
A clip joint or fleshpot is an establishment, usually a strip club or entertainment bar, typically one claiming to offer adult entertainment or bottle service, in which customers are tricked into paying money and receive poor goods or services, or none, in return...
on Tisbury Court and an adult cinema nearby. Prostitutes are widely available, operating in studio flats. These are sign-posted by fluorescent "model" signs at street level.
Windmill Theatre
The Windmill TheatreWindmill Theatre
The Windmill Theatre, later The Windmill International, was a variety and revue theatre in Great Windmill Street, London. The theatre was famous for its nude tableaux vivants...
was notorious for its risqué nude tableaux vivants, in which the models had to remain motionless to avoid censorship. It opened in June 1931 and was the only theatre in London which never closed, except for the twelve compulsory days between 4 and 16 September 1939. It stood on the site of a windmill that dated back to the reign of Charles II
Charles II of England
Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...
until late in the 18th century. The theatre was sold to the Compton Cinema Group. It closed on 31 October 1964 and was reconstructed as a cinema and casino.
Raymond Revuebar
The Raymond RevuebarRaymond Revuebar
The Raymond Revuebar was a theater and strip club at 11 Walker's Court, now The Box Soho, in the heart of London's Soho district. For many years, it was the only venue in London that offered full-frontal, on-stage nudity of the sort commonly seen in other cities in Europe and North America...
was a small theatre specialising in striptease and nude dancing. It was owned by Paul Raymond and opened on 21 April 1958. The most striking feature of the Revuebar was the huge brightly lit sign declaring it to be the "World Centre of Erotic Entertainment".
In the early eighties, the upstairs became known as the Boulevard Theatre and was used by a small group of alternative comedians called "The Comic Strip
The Comic Strip
The Comic Strip is a group of British comedians, known for their television series The Comic Strip Presents.... The core members are Adrian Edmondson, Dawn French, Rik Mayall, Nigel Planer, Peter Richardson and Jennifer Saunders, with frequent appearances by Keith Allen, Robbie Coltrane and...
" before they found wider recognition with the series The Comic Strip Presents on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
. It was also used as a "straight" theatre venue for a series of play premieres that included Diary of a Somebody (the Joe Orton
Joe Orton
John Kingsley Orton was an English playwright.In a short but prolific career lasting from 1964 until his death, he shocked, outraged and amused audiences with his scandalous black comedies...
diaries) by John Lahr
John Lahr
John Lahr is an American theater critic, and the son of actor Bert Lahr. Since 1992, he has been the senior drama critic at The New Yorker magazine.-Biography:...
, a rock opera version of Macbeth
Macbeth
The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare about a regicide and its aftermath. It is Shakespeare's shortest tragedy and is believed to have been written sometime between 1603 and 1607...
by Howard Goodall
Howard Goodall
210px|thumb|Howard Goodall at St. John the Baptist Church in Devon, United Kingdom, May 2009Howard Lindsay Goodall CBE is a British composer of musicals, choral music and music for television...
and The Lizard King (the Jim Morrison
Jim Morrison
James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...
play) by Jay Jeff Jones.
The name and control of the theatre (but crucially, not the property itself) was bought by Gerald Simi in 1997. Gradually the theatre's fortunes waned, with Simi citing rising rent demands from Raymond as the cause.
The Revuebar closed on 10 June 2004 and became a gay bar and cabaret venue called Too2Much, designed by Anarchitect. In November 2006, it changed its name to Soho Revue Bar. The launch party included performances by Boy George
Boy George
Boy George is a British singer-songwriter who was part of the English New Romantic movement which emerged in the early 1980s. He helped give androgyny an international stage with the success of Culture Club during the 1980s. His music is often classified as blue-eyed soul, which is influenced by...
, Antony Costa
Antony Costa
Antony Daniel Costa is an English singer-songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the boyband Blue.-Career:One of Costa's earliest television roles was as a pupil in Steven Moffat's sitcom Chalk...
and Marcella Detroit
Marcella Detroit
Marcella Detroit is a vocalist, guitarist, and songwriter. She was a member of the band Shakespears Sister, along with Siobhan Fahey of Bananarama. Detroit's soprano voice provided lead vocals on their biggest hit, "Stay," which was No...
. On 29 January 2009, the Soho Revue Bar closed.
Streets
- Berwick Street has record shops, fabric shops, and a small street marketBerwick Street MarketBerwick Street Market is a small market on Berwick Street in the heart of Soho, London, England, selling mainly fruit and vegetables and general goods. It is open Monday to Saturday from 9am until 6pm.-History:Berwick Street was built between 1687 and 1703...
open from Monday to Saturday. - Carnaby StreetCarnaby StreetCarnaby Street is a pedestrianised shopping street in London, United Kingdom, located in the Soho district, near Oxford Street and Regent Street. It is home to numerous fashion and lifestyle retailers, including a large number of independent fashion boutiques...
was for a short time the fashion centre of 1960s "Swinging London" although it quickly became known for poor quality 'kitschKitschKitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
' products. - Dean StreetDean StreetDean Street is a street in Soho, London, England, running between Oxford Street to the north and Shaftesbury Avenue to the south.-Historical figures:The street has a rich history. In 1764 a young Mozart gave a recital at 21 Dean Street...
is home to the Soho TheatreSoho TheatreSoho Theatre is a theatre in the eponymous Soho district of the City of Westminster. It presents new works of theatre, together with comedy and cabaret....
, and a pub called The French HouseThe French House, SohoThe French House is a pub and dining room at 49 Dean Street, Soho, London. It was previously known as the York Minster, but was informally called "the French pub" or "the French house" by its regulars...
which was during World War II popular with the French Government-in-exile. Karl MarxKarl MarxKarl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
lived at numbers 54 and 28 Dean Street between 1851 and 1856. - Denmark StreetDenmark StreetDenmark Street is a short narrow road in central London, notable for its connections with British popular music, and is known as the British Tin Pan Alley. The road connects Charing Cross Road at its western end with St Giles High Street at its eastern end. Denmark Street is in the London Borough...
was a music publishing centre. - Frith StreetFrith StreetFrith Street is in the Soho area of London, England. To the north is Soho Square and to the south is Shaftesbury Avenue. The street crosses Old Compton Street, Bateman Street and Romilly Street.- History :...
where John Logie BairdJohn Logie BairdJohn Logie Baird FRSE was a Scottish engineer and inventor of the world's first practical, publicly demonstrated television system, and also the world's first fully electronic colour television tube...
first demonstrated television in his laboratory, now the location of Bar ItaliaBar ItaliaBar Italia is a coffee shop located on Frith Street in Soho Central London.On January 26, 1926, John Logie Baird gave the first public demonstration of television at 22 Frith Street, the building where Bar Italia is located. The blue plaque above the front door commemorates this event...
. A plaque above the stage door of the Prince Edward Theatre identifies the site where MozartWolfgang Amadeus MozartWolfgang Amadeus Mozart , baptismal name Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart , was a prolific and influential composer of the Classical era. He composed over 600 works, many acknowledged as pinnacles of symphonic, concertante, chamber, piano, operatic, and choral music...
lived for a few years as a child. - Gerrard Street was home to Ronnie Scott's Jazz ClubRonnie Scott's Jazz ClubRonnie Scott's Jazz Club is a jazz club which has operated in London since 1959.The club opened on 30 October 1959 in a basement at 39 Gerrard Street in London's Soho district. It was managed by musicians Ronnie Scott and Pete King. In 1965 it moved to a larger venue nearby at 47 Frith Street...
, the 43 Club43 ClubThe 43 Club or "The 43" was a nightclub at in Soho, London that became notorious during the roaring twenties for outrageous parties frequented by the decadent rich and famous. Local myth provides many tales of provocative, licentious and sometimes criminal goings on. The proprietor, Kate Meyrick,...
and the Dive Bar, under the Kings Head. It is also the centre of London's ChinatownChinatown, LondonThe name Chinatown has been used at different times to describe different places in London. The present Chinatown is part of the Soho area of the City of Westminster, occupying the area in and around Gerrard Street...
. - Golden SquareGolden SquareGolden Square, Soho, London in the City of Westminster is one of the historic squares of Central London. The square is just east of Regent Street and north of Piccadilly Circus....
is a small urban square. - Great Marlborough StreetGreat Marlborough StreetGreat Marlborough Street runs west to east through the western part of Soho in London. At its western end it joins Regent Street. Streets intersecting, or meeting with, Great Marlborough Street are, from west to east, Kingly Street, Argyll Street, Carnaby Street, and Poland Street...
was once the location of Philip MorrisPhilip Morris (tobacconist)Philip Morris was a British tobacconist and a cigarette importer whose name was later used for Philip Morris Inc. Ltd. established in New York in 1902.In 1847, Philip Morris opened a shop on Bond Street in London...
' original London factory and gave its name to the Marlboro brand of cigarettes. It is also the former home of the London College of MusicLondon College of MusicThe London College of Music is a music school which is part of the University of West London in England.The LCM was founded in 1887 and existed as an independent music conservatoire based at Great Marlborough Street in central London until 1991...
. - Great Windmill StreetGreat Windmill StreetGreat Windmill Street is a thoroughfare running north-south in Soho, London, England. It is dissected by Shaftesbury Avenue. The street took its name from the windmill on the site which was first recorded 1585 and was demolished during the 1690s...
(below Lexington Street on map - not indicated) was home to the Windmill Theatre "which never closed". The principles of The Communist ManifestoThe Communist ManifestoThe Communist Manifesto, originally titled Manifesto of the Communist Party is a short 1848 publication written by the German Marxist political theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. It has since been recognized as one of the world's most influential political manuscripts. Commissioned by the...
were laid out at a meeting in the Red Lion pub. - Greek StreetGreek StreetGreek Street is a street in Soho, London, leading south from Soho Square to Shaftesbury Avenue. The street is famous for its restaurants and cosmopolitan nature.-History:...
- Old Compton StreetOld Compton StreetOld Compton Street runs east-west through Soho, London, England.- History :The street was named after Henry Compton. who raised funds for a local parish church, eventually dedicated as St Anne's Church in 1686...
was the birthplace of Europe's rock club circuit (2 I's club) and boasted the first adult cinema in England (The Compton Cinema Club). Dougie Millings, who was the famous tailor for The BeatlesThe BeatlesThe Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, had his first shop at 63 Old Compton Street which opened in 1962. Old Compton Street is now the core of Soho's gay villageGay villageA gay village is an urban geographic location with generally recognized boundaries where a large number of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people live or frequent...
. - In Soho SquareSoho SquareSoho Square is a square in Soho, London, England, with a park and garden area at its centre that dates back to 1681. It was originally called King Square after Charles II, whose statue stands in the square. At the centre of the garden, there is a distinctive half-timbered gardener's hut...
are Paul McCartneyPaul McCartneySir James Paul McCartney, MBE, Hon RAM, FRCM is an English musician, singer-songwriter and composer. Formerly of The Beatles and Wings , McCartney is listed in Guinness World Records as the "most successful musician and composer in popular music history", with 60 gold discs and sales of 100...
's office MPL CommunicationsMPL CommunicationsMPL Communications is the holding company for the business interests of Sir Paul McCartney. In addition to handling McCartney's post-Beatles work, MPL is also one of the world's largest privately owned music publishers through its acquisition of numerous other publishing companies...
, and the former Football AssociationThe Football AssociationThe Football Association, also known as simply The FA, is the governing body of football in England, and the Crown Dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man. It was formed in 1863, and is the oldest national football association...
headquarters. - Wardour StreetWardour StreetWardour Street is a street in Soho, London. It is a one-way street south to north from Leicester Square, up through Chinatown, across Shaftesbury Avenue to Oxford Street.-History:...
was home of the Marquee ClubMarquee ClubThe Marquee was a music club first located at 165 Oxford Street, London, England when it opened in 1958 with a range of jazz and skiffle acts.It was also the location of the first ever live performance by The Rolling Stones on 12 July 1962....
. Another seventies rock hangout was The Intrepid Fox Pub (97/99 Wardour Street).
Nearest underground stations and other transport issues
The nearest London Underground stations are Oxford CircusOxford Circus tube station
-External links:* ** ** * Plans of the station after the Victoria Line works , , *...
, Piccadilly Circus
Piccadilly Circus tube station
Piccadilly Circus tube station is the London Underground station located directly beneath Piccadilly Circus itself, with entrances at every corner...
, Tottenham Court Road
Tottenham Court Road tube station
Tottenham Court Road is a London Underground station in central London. It is an interchange between the Central line and the branch of the Northern line.On the Central line it is between and , and on the Northern line it is between and...
, Leicester Square
Leicester Square tube station
Leicester Square is a station on the London Underground, located on Charing Cross Road, a short distance to the east of Leicester Square itself....
and Covent Garden
Covent Garden tube station
Covent Garden is a London Underground station in Covent Garden. It is on the Piccadilly Line between Leicester Square and Holborn. The station is a Grade II listed building, on the corner of Long Acre and James Street...
.
Night-time traffic surveys carried by Westminster Council between 10 pm and 4 am indicate that Old Compton Street, Dean Street, and Frith Street experienced the highest levels of traffic within the Soho area. The busiest location was Old Compton Street between the junctions with Dean and Frith Street, which experienced 'medium' levels of traffic for four of the six hours of the survey, including between 2 am and 4 am.
Westminster Council stated that the narrow footways can become very congested at night, particularly at weekends, with people drinking in the street, eating outside takeaways, queuing at entertainment venues or to use bank ATMs, and people passing through the area. There are a number of premises with tables and chairs located on restricted pavement areas and this can cause a conflict between pedestrians and traffic.
External links
- www.sohomemories.org.uk
- The Soho Society
- The Survey of London: volumes 33 and 34, St Anne Soho (1966) — full text online
- The Soho Bombing in 1999