Re: RARA-AVIS: Re: how old is the New Scotland Yard?

From: scatalogic@aol.com
Date: 30 Jun 2007


I used to work near New Scotland Yard and often enjoyed watching the camera crews line up to film in front of the?hideous gigantic 'cheese slice' metal thing that carries the name, and which most British TV viewers will be very familiar with, it is a particularly brutalist building, but anyone visiting London will find lots more of interest in the back streets nearby surrounding St James' Park Underground station.?Sherlock Holmes would now be shot for fear of an eccentric retro-terrorist attack were he to approach in full cape and deerstalker combo, it also features gun-toting coppers aplenty - as now do many Government sites in London and elsewhere - a sight I still find unnerving and saddening?in a country that used to proudly boast it did not need to arm its officers of the law.?

The place I used to work, incidently (and OT, sorry) was The City Of Westminster Archives Centre in nearby St Ann's Street, a fascinating, fully open to the public collection of books, images and archives relating to the City and filled with dirty secrets from London's dity past (Harris' Book of Covent Garden Ladies anyone), a real noir place in the Asphalt Jungle and well worth a visit if you're in the area.?

Kind regards,?

Colin. ?

-----Original Message----- From: JIM DOHERTY < jimdohertyjr@yahoo.com> To: rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com Sent: Fri, 29 Jun 2007 7:04 pm Subject: RARA-AVIS: Re: how old is the New Scotland Yard?

Dave,

The first HQ of the London Metro Police was in a building near Buck House that was designated as the home-away-from-home for visitng Scottish royalty called Scotland Yard.

Sometime in the late 19th Century it moved to what Orson Welles called a "grim, stone structure on the Thames," which was called "New Scotland Yard," to differentiate it from the original HQ.

In the late '60's it moved to a rather nondescript glass and steel skyscraper. Technically, the new quarters should have been called "Newer Scotland Yard," but the name "New Scotland Yard" was retained.

I believe the old "New Scotland Yard" is still the repository for the Black Museum, now known officially as the "Crime Museum," though it's not really a museum in the sense that it's open to the public.

JIM DOHERTY

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