Recently in Centre Point Category

From the summer of 2009 onwards, a couple of the places mentioned in the original London CyberPunk Tourist Guide have been demolished as part of the re-development of Tottenham Court Road Tube Station

Between Denmark Street and St. Giles Circus, which is where the Charing Cross Road meets Oxford Street and becomes the Tottenham Court Road, there is was a cheap Internet Lounge at 138 Charing Cross Road

This offers offered cheap internet access, and mobile phone unlocking and accessories, and cheap long distance phone calls. Be very careful with your bags, mobile phones,purses, wallets etc, as these are a target for the local thieves. The internet PCs are also rife with various bits of spyware and password sniffers, so do not log into something sensitive or valuable. The internet traffic also appears to be "known to the Police"

Note one of the local "stinkies" peering into the window.

Go past the Internet Lounge, past a locked courtyard entrance marked "Sin" (the main entrance to which is round the corner) and you will pass a basement Comic shop called Orbital Comics at 148 Charing Cross Road,

The subway on the corner, leads into the Tottenham Court Road Tube station, and is ok during the day time, but this whole corner of Andrew Bordes Street is somewhere to avoid if you are on your own at night, as the "Stinkies", crackheads, drunks , and other addicts, trend to gather, just as their ancestors did during the time of William Hogarth.

Opposite the subway is the Astoria music venue, which also has a rich musical history of live performances by famous or soon to be famous bands.

However the whole of the block between Andrew Bordes Street and the Denmark Place alley on the east side of Charing Cross Road in the shadow of Centre Point, and the whole of the block of the Astoria Theatre punk /rock / other music venue on the western side have been demolished.

A couple of views from 10th November 2009:

Internet Lounge demolished.

Andrew Borde Street to Denmark Place alley.

Where the Astoria Theatre used to be.

Near to Foyles and Borders (closed in December 2009), opposite the junction of Charing Cross road with Denmark Street, is a curious, advertising campaign funded ,Temporary Autonomous Zone

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite preview

Monster Hunter Freedom Unite is Japan's most popular video game and with multiplayer games being played all over the streets of Japan, the game has even been described by some as a phenomenon. According to Capcom, in Japan this PSP game is bigger than Pokemon and Wii Fit!

Now Capcom, with the help of a very large advertising campaign hope to replicate that success in the UK

[...]

In London there are many places where you would not want to answer your mobile phone in public, let alone get your PSP our for a 20 minute gaming session. To kickstart online Gameplay in the UK, Capcom have setup a 'Gathering Hall', a kind of Monster Hunter drop in center where players can meet and play Monster Hunter together. They can also download exclusive quests, attend tutorial nights and maybe even meet some of the game's developers.

London Gathering Hall for Monster Hunter players

The Gathering Hall, open 7 days a week from the 3rd of July, is located in a three story building, just one minutes walk from Tottenham Court Road tube station on Charing Cross Road. Entrance is free (and exclusive) to anyone with a PSP and a copy of Monster Hunter Freedom Unite.

Address:
121 Charing Cross Road
Westminster
London
WC2H 0EW

[...]

Google StreetView / Map

StreetMap.co.uk map:

Latitude: N51:30:54 (51.515038)
Longitude: W0:07:49 (-0.130337)

It is very strange to see half a dozen "gamers" (all male, not teenagers but 20 - 30 year olds) lounging in multi-coloured armchairs, playing this Sony PSP game over WiFi, for free on the Charing Cross Road.

Do all three floors get filled with people playing this game ?

This is not even a "cyber café" - no beverages seem to be on offer.

How long will this last ?

UPDATE 10th November 2009 - the premises now seem to have reverted to a "normal" shop:

Centre Point is the 35 storey 325 foot high skyscraper office block, at the corner of Charing Cross Road, and New Oxford Street, which is the most easily visible landmark in the area.

For years after, Centre Point was was at the centre of controversy, as greedy property tycoon Harry Hyams intentionally kept it unoccupied as values soared against its potential rent yield.

It's construction cost in 1964 was £5.5 million whilst its estimated market value in 1973 was £20 million. Moreover, by keeping it empty it was not liable for rates!

GPS grid coordinates:
Latitude: (WGS84) N51:30:58 ( 51.516128 )
Longitude: (WGS84) W0:07:48 ( -0.129875 )

See also this semi-live BBC Jam cam traffic camera image (usually updated every few minutes, unless there is actually some interesting incident, when the feed is censored) from the Oxford Street / Centre Point camera, which usually points south, with the notorious "stinkie" subway corner visible in the top left..

UPDATE 20th August 2009 - everything from Andew Bordes Street to what was the Internet Lounge has been demolished as part of the new Tottenham Court Road Tube and Cross Rail station development..

The subway on the corner, leads into the Tottenham Court Road Tube station, and is ok during the day time, but this whole corner of Andrew Bordes Street is somewhere to avoid if you are on your own at night, as the "Stinkies", crackheads, drunks , and other addicts, trend to gather, just as their ancestors did during the time of William Hogarth.

Update 20th August 2009: this whole block has now been demolished as part of the re-development of Tottenham Court Road Tube Station

The Tottenham Court Road Tube Station re-development has also now destroyed this cyber café

=========================

Directly under the Centre Point building, in the dingy, dirty, dystopian underground tunnel, leading from Tottenham Court Road Tube Station, which used to be full of rough sleepers, there, is a Brazilian Cyber Café called Zone One.

This appears to have a decent selection of Brazilian cakes and coffee, and offers Internet access, although the BT BusinessHub Internet WiFi VoIP router in the window makes one suspect that it might be relatively unsophisticated technically. - have they changed the default passwords on the web administration page ?
(oops ! - no they have not)

Will your credit card details, if your are foolish enough to type them in here online, end up being rinsed by a Brasilian organised crime gang ?

GPS grid coordinates:

Latitude (WGS84) N51:30:59 ( 51.516267 )
Longitude (WGS84) W0:07:47 ( -0.129595 )

Update: 20th August 2009 - this whole block has now been demolished as part of the re-development of the Tottenham Court Road Tube Station.

=====================================================

Between Denmark Street and St. Giles Circus, which is where the Near Centre Point, where Charing Cross Road meets Oxford Street and becomes the Tottenham Court Road, there is a cheap Internet Lounge at 138 Charing Cross Road

This offers cheap internet access, and mobile phone unlocking and accessories, and cheap long distance phone calls. Be very careful with your bags, mobile phones,purses, wallets etc, as these are a target for the local thieves. The internet PCs are also rife with various bits of spyware and password sniffers, so do not log into something sensitive or valuable, and virus check any removable media like flopy disks or USB memory sticks you connect to the PCs .

The internet traffic also appears to be "known to the Police"

It is still worth a visit to observe internet low life and naive tourists in action.

Note one of the local "stinkies" peering into the window.

GPS grid coordinates:
Latitude: (WGS84) N51:30:56 ( 51.515434 )
Longitude: (WGS84) W0:07:47 ( -0.129745 )

Another candidate for a William Gibson Board tourist meet up is the Point 101 bar, also in the shadow of Centre Point at 101 New Oxford Street.

This has two floors, with a glass frontage, and is quite large, but it can be crowded in the evening.

The Intrepid Fox public house, 15 St.Giles High Street

The Intrepid Fox public house, used to be situated in Soho, and was (in)famous as a music venue which attracted "alternative" lifestyle people. After the original site was sold to property speculators, it has moved to take over the former Sanctuary public house, in St.Giles High Street, in the shadow of Centre Point.

In this former guise, as the Sanctuary, it was the location for the overspill book signing of Virtual Light by William Gibson, back in 1994, which due to happen in the old Forbidden Planet bookshop, which was then on New Oxford Street.

This makes it very close to both of the Ground Zero events - the book reading / signing event locations at the Trades Union Congress conference centre in Great Russell Street on Tuesday 28th August at 7pm, and the signing at the Forbidden Planet Megastore, in Shaftesbury Avenue,on Wednesday 29th at 1pm - 2pm.

The pub has retained the decor of the old venue, but has more space,and, importantly for some, now that the "no smoking in public places"law has come into force in England, a bit of a walled patio where smokers can perch themselves, whilst still being "not more than 50% enclosed", without spilling out into the traffic.

It is a strong candidate venue for William Gibson Board tourists to meet up at before or after the events for a drink.

GPS grid coordinates:
Latitude: (WGS84) N51:30:58 ( 51.516017 )
Longitude: (WGS84) W0:07:45 ( -0.129101 )

N.B. this whole area around Centre Point, St.Giles High Street and High Holborn is not a safe place to be on your own at night - there is a lot of street crime from aggressive beggars, drug addicts, muggers etc. who uphold the old historical tradition of the notorious 18th and 19th Century slum The Rookery, which used to occupy this area, and which was illustrated by the engraver William Hogarth in Gin Lane etc.