#broadwick street

[i-only-ever-asked-questions]

Map of Soho Good Omens Season 2 - Part 1 (Location and general map)

Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Update: Map now identifies Lucky Snake and the coffee shop listed in Aziraphale's clipboard may indeed be Give Me Coffee I think we all have wondered how the GO Soho looks like and where it would be in real London. So using all the screenshots, BTS pictures and videos I could find I did my best to map out where things are. It is not to scale but everything I could see is there. I originally had all the pictures and explanations in this post but soon it became obvious it was going to be too long and impractical so I had to split it in different posts and I hope I got it right. The map has five reference points (circle with two diverging lines); imagine the circle is you, standing in the set, and the lines are your viewpoint if you were taking a picture from there. The left side of Whickber Street (#1 and #2) is in Part 2, the intersecting street (#3 and #4) is in Part 3 and the right half of Whickber Street (#5) is in Part 4.

As to where the bookshop would be in real London. We know that Whickber Street is supposed to be Berwick Street so let's start there. The intersecting street is not obvious from the show. In this post Neil said he imagines the bookshop to be where Gosh! Comics is (Peter Street) while Michael Ralph and Douglas McKinnon probably put it at The Week (on Broadwick Street). Because it is ambiguous and really you can do whatever you want, I just left it as "intersecting street". We know from the book that Crowley takes Wardour Street after the bookshop fire. Wardour is behind Berwick so in our map it would be where the Chinese Buffet Restaurant is, considering they run more or less parallel. On the other side, we have the Windmill Theatre located on Great Windmill Street. From Berwick St. and Peter St. it takes three minutes to walk to the theatre, it is that close! (yes, I know, Crowley was conducting business two blocks from the bookshop while not talking to Aziraphale for 80 years). I have never been in that part of London so I used Google Maps streetview and based only on that, I like the corner of Berwick St. and Broadwick St. better. It has the crooked intersection but the proximity of the theatre matches Peter St. better, so whatever works better for you!

There is one place missing from the set map though: Brown's World of Carpets! It is nowhere to be found, we simply don't know where it is My very personal headcanon is that it is nothing but a desk inside the furniture store. I find that idea of the guy most worried about storefront looks being the one without a storefront very amusing, but don't mind me, it is just my very silly hc XD Now, we know Aziraphale has a list for the shops he needs to visit. And we know he wrote it in alphabetical order which begs the question: Where is the Dirty Donkey?! Are they not invited? And what about the fabric shop? And Bilton Scaggs? Battye and Palm? The News Agency? Is "Mo Coffee? No Coffee?" supposed to be Give Me Coffee or Give Me Death? Or is there another coffee shop somewhere? @crow-bee23 suggested it could be "Me Coffee" which it is entirely possible, the full name is kind of long. So many questions to ask Mr. Brown.

Anyway, I put pictures and details on the shops in parts 2, 3 and 4. Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

[oscarwetnwilde]

James Wilby in "unsavory character roles" in gif form.

James McCready in Trials and Retribution IV The Dis-Honorable Freddie Nesbitt in Gosford Park. Edward Milton in Midsomer Murders: Made To Measure Hugh Mallory in Lewis: Expiation. Charles Broadwick in Ripper Street: Dynamite & A Woman Archie Grayling in Casualty. Charles Wilcox in Howards End. Charles Ridley in Strike Back. Sefton Scott in Father Brown: The Cat of Mastigatus

[neil-gaiman]

Hi Neil! My partner and I both watched good omens season 2 and loved it. The only part my partner did not like is the unrealistic portrayal of Magie's record shop. "That place would be very busy in Soho! Especially with hipsters" were his words. I told him I would ask you if there was a reasonable explanation for the lack of business in Maggie's shop?

I'm sure he's right. But still... I've watched so many wonderful established Soho record shops go out of business in the last thirty years, and I've gone into shops that used to be bustling that were pretty much empty because people had stopped buying music on disks or tape or vinyl, and seen several amazing specialist shops I thought would last forever close their doors that it seemed to me pretty likely that a vinyl-based shop that had been in business since about 1930 would be struggling.

Here's a wonderful article from the web (from 2015) about all the record shops that have closed in Soho -- especially in Berwick Street, which inspired Whickber Street.

And here are the record shops of Soho from 1946-1996:

Reckless Records is still in Berwick Street, so is Sister Ray. Sounds of the Universe in Broadwick Street is lovely. And there are others. But I've not often found them "especially busy" although they are never as empty as Maggie's shop.

[ghostofbambifanfiction]

Hi! Do you have any recommendations for pubs in London that are good for a solo traveller, or are considered to be must-visits? In London for a couple of days by myself and have always wanted to visit a proper UK pub. My apologies if this feels weird or intrusive in any way but I literally have no one else to ask lol. Thank you!

So I'm never in London unless I have to be (ironically I was there visiting my brother yesterday) and I'm not a frequenter of pubs, but I asked my friend who lives there and she's recommended The Southwark Tavern near Borough Market, John Snow in Broadwick Street and Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street. She also said that you can find good places by just strolling along the Thames, especially when the weather is nice like it is right now!

[robertbrook]

Trenchard house / Broadwick Street / City of Westminster / September 2019

[fitzrovianews]

Cafe plan could mean the end for public toilet site in Soho

Broadwick Street underground toilets have been closed since 2021. Credit: Google. A busy Soho street that “smells like piss in the summer” because so many people urinate on the streets could lose another public toilet. Lift Coffee has submitted a planning application to turn the underground loos on Broadwick Street in Soho, which have been shut since 2021 after becoming a popular hangout for…

[londonara]

Outreach at 6 p.m. on Wednesday 1st February on Carnaby Street

[owenbedford]

Broadwick Street, November '17

[mydaroga]

Not Only... But Also sketch starring John Lennon, which aired on BBC One on 26 December 1966. The club in the sketch, Ad Lav, is a play on the Ad Lib club he and the other Beatles were known to frequent. From the BeatlesBible.com: The 51-second sketch was filmed early in the morning on London’s Broadwick Street, beside the entrance to the underground men’s toilet on the corner of Hopkins Street. It also featured Peter Cook as the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

[pandemic-info]

Lister's carbolic steam spray apparatus, Hunterian Museum, Glasgow

John Snow's Water Pump - a cholera epidemic broke out in SOHO in 1854 and killed 500 people in a few months. John Snow identified a water pump on Broadwick Street as being the cause of the outbreak. The pump's handle was removed and disabled. And, after that, the cholera declined. - by Betsy Weber on Flickr

—

Joseph Lister

In 1867, Joseph Lister, a forty-year-old doctor, published an article in The Lancet that fundamentally changed medicine. “An Address on the Antiseptic System of Treatment in Surgery” was a description of a new way of doing operations that he first presented in Glasgow, Scotland, where he practiced medicine. At that time, the "germ theory" of disease was just a theory. Lister's innovation was simply to try to kill the germs. Lister used a spray made of carbolic acid, on wounds, dressings and surgical tools. He also washed his hands. The acid killed the germs before they had a chance to cause infection, and the hand-washing kept new germs from being introduced. ... Although British and American surgeons were irked by the “Scottish upstart,” according to Harvard University, “by 1875, sterilization of instruments and the scrubbing of hands were widely practiced.” Carbolic spray was exchanged for other antiseptics by 1885. - Smithsonian Magazine

Surgery was extremely dangerous prior, with high death rates.

Note that it took nearly a decade to widely adopt the practice and another to improve upon it. There were complaints and hostility for a while:

Lister published a paper about his system in the Lancet, but because Pasteur’s germ theory was still untested many surgeons were sceptical. Without the belief that germs were real and dangerous, many surgeons found the antiseptic system unnecessarily complicated and excessive. Some surgeons were opposed because they thought that Lister was proposing carbolic acid as a treatment for infection rather than as one possible chemical barrier or antiseptic for preventing infection entering the body. They objected that carbolic acid was too toxic for wound dressings because, in strong solutions it irritated and burned the wound and surrounding skin, and an overdose could cause excessive vomiting. - Science Museum UK

But ultimately his work led to the sterilization we now take for granted.

Fun fact: the mouthwash, Listerine, is named after Lister.

—

John Snow

English physician and a leader in the development of anaesthesia and medical hygiene. He is considered one of the founders of modern epidemiology, in part because of his work in tracing the source of a cholera outbreak in Soho, London, in 1854, which he curtailed by removing the handle of a water pump. Snow's findings inspired the adoption of anaesthesia as well as fundamental changes in the water and waste systems of London, which led to similar changes in other cities, and a significant improvement in general public health around the world. - Wikipedia

Again, this didn't come easily:

Political controversy After the cholera epidemic had subsided, government officials replaced the Broad Street pump handle. They had responded only to the urgent threat posed to the population, and afterward they rejected Snow's theory. To accept his proposal would have meant indirectly accepting the fecal-oral route of disease transmission, which was too unpleasant for most of the public to contemplate. ... Public health officials recognise the political struggles in which reformers have often become entangled. During the Annual Pumphandle Lecture in England, members of the John Snow Society remove and replace a pump handle to symbolise the continuing challenges for advances in public health.

We're seeing parallels now:

Places with high transmission rates and where vulnerable people gather — like hospitals, pharmacies, nursing homes, and schools — refusing to upgrade ventilation, portable HEPA filtered air purifiers either refused or removed, refusing to implement or maintain masking policies. Agencies that should be maintaining public health practices instead relaxing their messaging and businesses using that "guidance" as an excuse.

We have an opportunity to learn from history and expedite positive progress instead of slowing it down for decades, again, at the cost of millions of lives (lost not only to death but illness, poverty, and overall well-being).

[beyondfabric]

Studio Nicholson new Soho Flagship Store

The brand’s second London-based store was envisioned by its founder to deliver an immersive experience that accurately portrays the label’s aesthetical universe. The inviting space features commissioned pieces against a white background and light wooden furniture, that seamlessly come together to create a minimalistic ambience. 

Studio Nicholson 9-11 Broadwick Street London

[alepoststhings]

THE WESTMINISTER GAZETTE.

Violence on Broadwick Street

July 17, 1888. Last night, near the desolate streets of Broadwick Street, a dreadful incident broke out that froze the blood of many. Four men were brutally attacked for what they described as: "A beast with the appearance of a man."

- "The creature was on its knees with blood on it's nose and mouth, I got closer to it to offer my help but it only responded with grunts to then pounce on me and bite my arm. It is a miracle that I'm still alive.

The police are still looking for this suspect that the locals have named as the one-eyed demon.

...Uhm I can explain about this, just not now... Let the mystery spread (´• ω •`)

[i-will-be-a-legend]

The “Mercury suit”.

“Freddie wanted to look like the God Mercury. He went and bought the fabric from Borovick's in Broadwick Street in London. You could buy stage fabrics there. It was a stretch satin, skin tight, with a low v-neck and a zip. The sleeves were long and tight, and I made a little padded wing on the cuff. And the wings on the heels were Velcroed on so they were detachable. They were quilted, like a bird’s wing and attached with Velcro on the front. He had the ideas and we worked on them together.

Then I made him a little white waistcoat which you can also see him wearing in the Bohemian Rhapsody video. I also made a black suit which was very similar with a low neck at the front, with a spine down the back. He wanted it to look more evil as it symbolized the Black Queen. I made several of them and 3 or 4 of the white ones, but one of them shrunk and I had to unpick it. Around that time Zandra Rhodes made Brian’s lovely cape thing. I went to Freddie’s flat in Victoria Road for fittings with my son Luther who was then only 15 months old. Freddie always just wanted them really tight! It was great fun doing the costumes.”

Wendy Edmonds, “Queen in Cornwall”

[londonara]

Outreach at 6 p.m. on Wednesday 25th January on Carnaby Street

[sdimbour]

#bonjour #photooftheday . #soho #myplace 😀 #broadwickstreet #london #england . . . #people #bar #street #city_in_bnw #hellolondon #helloengland #hello_bnw #hello_worldpic #igerslondon #igersengland #igersbnw #outofthephone #shotoniphone #igdaily #instadaily #instapic #instabnw #streetphotography #lensonstreets #lifeisstreet #lifestyle #moment #dreamsinstreets (à Broadwick Street) https://www.instagram.com/p/B9OI9tzItGi/?igshid=9epndwxhviej

[andreacellerino]

London 1998 @nicolaformichetti , #yukoyabiku #ericportès open #thepinealeye an amazing concept store like no others. 49 Broadwick Street was the place to be if you were into fashion, clubbing or a celebrity looking for a unique piece. @lesfotosdedimache , a young art student, was always around capturing many of those exiting moments... 👁‍🗨 (at London, United Kingdom) https://www.instagram.com/p/B-U7JI4ARQ-/?igshid=1elm8er75wty