Serving Fitzrovia since 1066
By Celeste Bramwell, Senior Urban Affairs Correspondent Fitzrovia has long prided itself on being at the cutting edge of metropolitan life. Now, in a bold experiment, local authorities have announced plans to pilot the world’s first 25-hour day, arguing that “24 hours simply isn’t enough for everything we want to do.” Why 25 Hours? According…
By Percival Hume, Culture Editor The latest proposal to emerge from Fitzrovia’s ever-inventive civic imagination is not another new transport scheme or an ambitious architectural folly, but something far more ethereal: an official neighbourhood scent. The idea, floated by the Fitzrovia Cultural Committee during its quarterly meeting at a café where no coffee is served…
Residents of Westminster are demanding answers after it emerged that the Central London Neighbourhood Unity Forum (CLNUF) spent £12,000 on a set of ‘heritage benches’ that are, by design, impossible to sit on. The sleek stone benches, installed last month along New Cavendish Street, feature sharply sloped surfaces and polished bronze armrests that prevent anyone…
By Lavender Botts Westminster is reeling after revelations that the Central London Neighbourhood Unity Forum (CLNUF) spent £40,000 of community funds on a ceremonial gong that has yet to be struck in public. The 8-foot bronze instrument, commissioned from a “sound healer collective” in Bali, was meant to be the centrepiece of local meetings. In…
By Our Wellness Correspondent Fitzrovia is no stranger to eccentric ideas, but the council’s latest pilot scheme has left locals blinking. This week, Westminster Council announced it would be trialling the UK’s first “Wellness Traffic Lights” at the junction of Goodge Street and Charlotte Street. Instead of the standard red, amber, and green signals, the…
By our gastronomic–cultural correspondent Jenny Winn London is no stranger to boutique butchers, but Fitzrovia has gone one step further: this week, Charlotte Street welcomed “The Existential Chop,” a butcher’s shop where every sausage, chop and cutlet comes with a footnote, a question, or occasionally, an apology. The venture is the brainchild of Osbert Penhaligon,…
By Staff Reporter Fitzrovia could soon be trading paint-splattered studios for scented steam rooms after the surprise discovery of a mineral-rich well beneath New Cavendish Street. Contractors carrying out routine works earlier this year stumbled upon a natural aquifer deep below the road. Early tests by the London Hydrogeology Institute revealed the water contains high…
Once the preserve of agile teenagers in hoodies vaulting bins, parkour—the art of moving efficiently and creatively through urban environments—has undergone a transformation as surprising as a front-flip off a postbox. No longer just the domain of the young, a new wave of practitioners is proving that you’re never too old to leap, swing, or…
In a bold fusion of urban planning and aquatic exuberance a proposal has emerged from the Fitzrovia Summer Infrastructure Imagination Sub-Committee (a group of retired architects and one man named Crispin with a degree in fluid aesthetics) to install a gigantic water slide curling through the neighbourhood – beginning, naturally, at the top of the…
In what is already being dubbed “The Most Polite Rebellion in British History,” a group of determined residents has launched the Campaign for Marylebone Independence (CMI), claiming their central London enclave has been “economically, culturally, and spiritually distinct since at least brunch last Sunday.” Leading the charge is Basil Etherington-Smythe, 64, a retired haberdasher and…