Oxford Street London is renowned for being the busiest shopping street in the World. In all my years I have never seen it as empty as I saw it yesterday. This depicted photograph was taken at 9.50am yesterday ( Wednesday 28th July. ) shortly before my meeting in nearby Portman Square.
Missing people and missing traffic struck me as I wandered down Ghost Town. The street that once commanded the highest rents in Europe was dead. There are 55 shop leases on the market at a time the retail high street bricks and mortar return to dust. Online shopping has ousted pedestrian traffic. The taxi drivers bemoan the missing tourists, the retailers bemoan the missing shoppers, the traffic wardens bemoan the lack of illegally parked cars and the street cleaners have little to clean. Someone somewhere decided to place a green mound at nearby Marble Arch that splendid Tyburn where the once criminal fraternity literally hung out. The last stop before the gallows was Upper Grosvenor Street where they got off the wagon for a final swig of alcohol before the torture of Tyburn. Today giving up alcohol is commonly known as being on the wagon as one will never again sip alcohol on that final leg to the scaffold. The Ghosts of Tyburn meet the Ghosts of Oxford Street.
Selfridges that magnificent store built by Mr Selfridge and recently restored by family Weston is as a business up for sale but who will pay the £4 billion that is sought ? What will happen ? Something must happen. The John Lewis Department store will be turned into flats but will those that live there want to live in Ghost Town. Granted Covid 19 may not last forever but other nasties are likely to follow. How many coffee shops do we need ? How many coffee shops survive ? How many Shish Kebab shops do we need ? More restaurants attract more rats , rodents and foxes who too are in shock as they flex their muscles in this new age.
Household names are disappearing and the new kids on the block are from the Middle East and Asia plying their trade in great expectation. I bought a product from the Pharmacy which I needed but it was four times more than locally. ( yes I understand the price of convenience). What of Transport for London they need the £750m a year subsidy from the business rates which no longer can be afforded. The passengers have faded away just like the shops, empty looking lost in the Ghost Town.
As I wandered the open landscape carefree traffic free no hustle no bustle , no hawkers no street beggars or buskers just the silence of Ghost Town. Very sad , very eerie and very worrying for life as we knew it I believe has ended. That American bloke called Bezos caused all this from his garage 25 years ago and it’s not going to change. Dickens’ Ghost has returned.
qbitblogger 