Piccadilly Circus – London’s Times Square

Craig’s review… When I used to fly home from faraway places I’d jump on the tube train at Heathrow and spill out here in the middle of the night. I’d come up the station stairs staring at the neon lights and everyone would be milling around the West End after the pubs have shut, after their show has ended, and they’d just be sitting on the steps taking it all in – they were happy just doing that, sitting with their missus and being part of London life. It was like watching fireworks on a cold November night – seeing their faces getting splattered in disco colours from the giant lighted adverts over the road. Smudge the pavement with a bit of rain and this place can be real pretty.

If you come here in the morning then it will be busy with Londoners walking to work. We all pass through here at some point – the workers, shirkers, street cleaners, street sleepers, street entertainers, and peddlers selling West End theatre tickets. There are more traffic lights around here than any place on Earth. More headlights than heads. The traffic does a loop around the fountain while the tourists troop across from Leicester Square in groups of two and family fours. They orbit the steps a few times before heading down Shaftesbury Avenue (theatres), Regent Street (shops), Piccadilly (more shops) or the road less taken: Glasshouse Street.

If you ask someone who’s lived here their entire life where Glasshouse Street is then the odds are they won’t have a clue, but head down there if you fancy getting lost in the saucy streets around Soho. Take a wrong turn and you’ll find more neon lights, but this time they’re decorating the kind of doors that don’t have handles, highlighting the edges of animated legs and the coloured ruffles of a ra-ra skirt.

Piccadilly Circus was probably the first part of London that I got to know well as a kid because they had a big Tower Records on the corner (long gone now) and a HMV in the Trocadero Centre (also gone), and when you’re 16 years old that’s where you do your weekly shop. Who needs food when you’re 16? It was all CDs and DVDs (videos in my day). Burger King has disappeared as well – it’s Barclays Bank now. The only things that have remained the same are the bright lights, fountain and the crowds.

The Eros Fountain

Let’s talk about the Eros fountain before we go any further because this fountain has been the source of many, many arguments (a hell of a lot of arguments) and I’m in the mood for a right old ding-dong so let’s have a disagreement right now – come on, just you and me. Let’s have it out! (This may end up in a fistfight.)

I will begin: He’s not Eros.

I don’t care what you know, or what you think you know, or how many guidebooks you’ve read saying that he’s Eros, because I am telling you right now that he is not Eros. Just because he’s holding a bow and arrow does not make him bloody Eros. Robin Hood carried a bow and arrow and nobody thinks that he’s Eros, do they?

The Angel of Christian Charity

So who is he then? Well, the correct answer is the ‘Angel of Christian Charity’ (whoever that is). But if you try and enlighten the tourists they won’t believe you – they don’t want to. They’ve brought their partners along for a loving cuddle on the steps, thinking that the Greek God of Love will shower them with a lifetime of wedded bliss. But he won’t. Because it’s not him.

It’s the Angel of Charity, and the most you’ll get with charity is perhaps five years of happiness followed by fifteen years of misery and a final few decades where you can’t even remember each other’s name. But if you try telling that to the tourists then they burst into tears. (I’m thinking about giving up writing and becoming a tour guide.) I’ve never understood what’s so romantic about Eros anyway. If I was in love with somebody then the last thing I’d want is a chubby little kid firing arrows at her.

I wonder what Eros would look like if we designed him today? He wouldn’t have a bow and arrow because we don’t use those any more – that is old technology. He’d probably have a sniper rifle.

The other disagreement that everybody always has about the fountain is whether his bow is pointing down Shaftesbury Avenue. There’s an urban myth that Eros (although it’s not Eros – but I’m not getting into that again) is “burying his shaft” up Shaftesbury Avenue. But he’s actually aiming it towards the southern half of Regent Street – the part that leads down towards the Duke of York’s Column.

And you can trust me on this because I’m standing underneath it while I’m writing this! So the next time somebody tries to tell you otherwise then just tell them they’re talking nonsense.

Worth a visit? ★★★Value for money? n/aGood for kids? ★★★Easy to get to? ★★★

I also recommend… If you enjoy this then try Covent Garden (walk it in 12 mins or catch a tube from Piccadilly Circus to Covent Garden); Leicester Square (you can walk it in 4 mins); Trafalgar Square (you can walk it in 6 mins) and West End (you can walk it in less than 3 mins)

The author Craig Cross owns city-guide.london and has spent the last decade reviewing the capital’s landmarks, attractions and hotels. His guidebook London Squire is available from Amazon