Urban Diary

Centrepoint: from office complex to millionaires’ digs

Centrepoint, reflected on a shop window (photo by author)

White-washed and shaped like a big shaft in the middle of Tottenham Court Road, in the heart of London’s West End, Centrepoint is hard to miss. I always had my aesthetical doubts about it until a garish screen screaming ads at passers-by opened as part of that funny, gentrification-friendly concept that has come to define much of what gets built in Britain today: redevelopment.

In Centrepoint’s case, it is Crossrail 2, a station that will supposedly provide good connections to other services such as the Northern and Central Lines, as well as the newly opened Elizabeth Line.

With nausea-inducing, American-style sweet shops up and down Oxford Street, and loud music-blasting pedicabs at the beck and call of impatient tourists, Centrepoint is no longer the sore sight it once was. Still, you need some serious dosh to lodge up there.

Urban Diary

Urban Diary

Notes on Frank Auerbach’s “The Charcoal Heads”