Sunday, March 18, 2007

Broadgate tower nickname competition results

We have a winner to the Broadgate Tower nickname competition. By de fault (the two finest words...).

It will from now on be known as the Rubik's magic:

I've tried very hard to find a vertical picture of the magic, but no luck. I have actually just searched Google and Google images for about 5 minutes, but in this day and age, with information on more than a twinkle of an eye away I think that counts as very hard.

Many thanks to Kate, my sister, for the initial observation, and to Walter for clarifying the name of the particular Rubik thing it looked like. Unfortunately there wasn't much, or indeed any, heated debate about the relative merits of various names. In hindsight I should have drawn up a shortlist. One candidate I've thought of since is "the razor", but it's too late for that now.

GherkinTrouble is though that the "Magic" Tower is one of the less magical of the new designs. If the name does catch on visitors to the city, unfamiliar with the historical origins of the name, will undoubtedly make erroneous use of it, like Fergie does with London Bridge in her video. It'll probably end up migrating over to be being a supplementary nickname for the Gherkin or Bishopsgate Tower, given that they look rather more magical. Ah well.

In the same post on Londonist that linked to the competition there was a link to a blog by someone who goes by the name of Diamond Geezer. He took the number 42 bus from opposite the tower to see if it could give him the answers to life, the universe and all that. He begins:

This lowly sideroad marks the precise boundary between the wealthy City of London and the rather needier borough of Hackney. On the rich side is one of London's biggest building sites, upon which the 35 storey Broadgate Tower is being constructed.

City Limit sign goneI think I pointed out once before that the city limits sign just to the North of the tower was damaged in the wind a while back. Well, now it's completely gone! I know it doesn't mean anything, other than perhaps the throwaway culture has spread to markers of permanent boundaries, but it does now mean that Broadgate Tower is effectively a signpost - the only signpost - to let people know they've reached the city. Perhaps best illustrated by the photo below. The landscape toddles along at a stately pace, and then, all of a sudden, there's a great big monolith in front of you.

Having said that the city limit sign being removed doesn't mean anything, the Light Bar - where I haven't been for ages come to think of it - on the right of the photo, is apparently under constant threat of being knocked down to make way for offices. It's a refurbished mini power station, and they still have lots of the industrial fittings hanging from the roof. In 2000 a plan to "raft it over", whatever that means, was blocked. On the front page of their website they have a permanent petition email form for clientelle to register their support.

I do often wonder at what rate the economy is expected to grow in order to fill up allo this office space. And will we in the near future be living in a world where the location of the office becomes less important due to t'internet, travel restrictions and all that. It'd be great if some of these towers struggled to get filled and were converted into flats.
Broadgate tower and light bar

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