Piccadilly Circus, London 1977

Piccadilly Circus redevelopment, London, 1977. This striking view shows the famous junction in the middle of one of its biggest post-war changes. On the left stands the domed frontage of the Westminster County Insurance Offices, while the Shaftesbury Memorial Fountain, popularly known as Eros, rises in the centre with people sitting around its steps. Behind it, the neon frontage of the Piccadilly Theatre advertises RSC Wild Oats, and to the right the old illuminated advertising site is wrapped in scaffolding beneath a large Philips sign. The blue hoardings below carry repeated Trollope & Colls boards and the lower frontage includes signs for Glen & Symons, neatly capturing the site while it was still under construction. Back in 1960, the building behind the iconic Coca-Cola and Guinness signs was demolished for a planned skyscraper, but the advertising wall was left standing with an empty plot behind it. In the end the tower was never built, and in 1977 that wall was finally demolished, as seen here, clearing the site for the new building. When the redevelopment was completed a few years later, Coca-Cola returned to the corner, with a Wimpy and Boots opening at street level around 1980; the Wimpy later became a Burger King in 1989, while Boots remained on the site in the later layout of the Piccadilly Lights block.