St Pancras Hotel re-opens

[London_Calling]

When you take everything into account - the new pedestrain square between Euston and St P, the new facade of Euston, the immense residential and office redevelopment around the back, St P station itself (Eurostar, etc) - it's quite the regeneration spot. Spectacular, tbf.

 

[Ivana Nap]

Does that mean you can't enter the actual station from the original entrance (facing Euston Road) any more?

If you drive over the bouncer you can , they have to move the VIP rope poles at the moment to let in traffic, I suppose when it opens properly that will all be opened up but they don't even seem to have finished the main front door from Euston Rd yet.


And yes, the bouncer on this morning did have a shaved head.

 

[Retrorhythm]

This has always been one of my favourite London buildings, and it's great to see it being used for its intended purpose again. They've done a really impressive restoration of the Grand Staircase:


More here

 

[lang rabbie]

The thing I shall miss most following the tarting up of St Pancras is the old cab exit into Midland Road with that wonderful unlit double twist tunnel barely large enough to get a taxicab through. As a kid I pondered that it could actually be a wormhole in the space-time continuum and you would emerge from the darkness in a Hansom cab driving through the streets of Sherlock Holmes' London.

 

[Giles]

I remember reading somewhere that when the building was getting really run down, and partially used as cheap office / storage space for the railway, that as the top floors suffered from more and more roof leaks, rotten window-frames and other problems, they didn't fix them, just retreated further down the building and gave up on it, a floor at a time!

Because they saw it as destined for eventual demolition, and so weren't going to spend any money on the fabric of the building.

It is good to see it fully restored after coming so close to demolition. Will have to pop into the bar for a (probably very expensive) drink some time.

Giles..

 

[twentythreedom]

Should have an urban75 meet-up there I reckon

 

[Mapped]

The bar is now open to Joe public, I just used it for a quick meeting. It's nice, lots of dark wood, fairly posh and coffee is £3.

 

[quimcunx]

This has always been one of my favourite London buildings, and it's great to see it being used for its intended purpose again. They've done a really impressive restoration of the Grand Staircase:


More here

Am I a bad person if I think that's horrible?

 

[TitanSound]

Should have an urban75 meet-up there I reckon

We'll be chucked out within 10 minutes.

 

[temper_tantrum]

The bar is now open to Joe public, I just used it for a quick meeting. It's nice, lots of dark wood, fairly posh and coffee is £3.

OOooooooh YES, thanks for saying. I've been planning a date there ever since I heard it was gonna re-open. Will drag someone along

 

[editor]

Low drama at St Pancras with a brown bowler hatted football stand off
http://www.urban75.org/blog/st-pancras-brown-bowler-hatted-football-stand-off/

 

[London_Calling]

Bloke on the left looks like he's concealing one of those bollards in a very personal space.

 

[marty21]

walked past it yesterday - it looks great!

 

[davesgcr]

What is now the shopping and ticketing area , was the beer store (beer came in trainloads from Burton) - BR filled the area with file storeage in the old paper based railway - there was of course , tons and tons of it. An ex colleauage was a claims "detective" and spent many hours down there trying to find matching paper work on staff records and so on. He described it as one of the scariest and dirtiest places on the railway.

I had some staff who worked for me , who were taken on in the late 1940's and early 50's who were recruited by the then Divisonal Operating Superindent at St Pancras Chambers - course when they retired , I got their personal staff files out to find out a bit about their career history , and I thumbed through many priceless letters , interviews and test results which were carried out by these young hopefulls in this building. (trouble is , I enjoyed reading the records too much !) - all part of social history (and of course preserved in the archives elsewhere in the UK)