London's New Underground Station is Palatial

Greymouth Evening Star, 26 January 1929, Page 9

London's New Underground Station is Palatial

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Copyright—THE SUN Feature Service I HONDON is becoming full I of the eighth wonders of the world, and we are beginning to shout m: loudly as the American:, about having the largest this and the most luxurious that and the most unique something else. And certainly four of our most recent constructions would take some beat- ( ing. . . . Grosvenor House on Park j Lane, of which the second half is still in process of construction; our two super-cinema houses, the Empire and the Regal; and now the new Piccadilly Underground Station, opened at mid-day to-day.

When I arrived at the last-named place and descended by one of the seven entrances to the booking hall, I found a considerable part of the city’s population there before me. It took a small army of police and all the best-looking and most amiable of the company’s officials to keep the sightseers moving round the ambulatory and out of the way of passengers. The ambulatory is the outer ring of the great booking hall, which is described as oval, but which looks just round . It was so crowded that I could hardly believe it is the third of a mile round that it is claimed to he. Into it, from the main streets, open the seven stairways. It is meant for pedestrians who wish to cross the Circus, and surrounds a central area of activity designed more for the railway travellers. In this central area stand 25 white box-like kiosks, housing ticket machines, that on the insertion of coins hand out tickets priced from one penny to sixpence. Higher-priced tickets are to be obtained at windows. There are here also four change machines. No longer will any human agency take in the cheaper fares. Past, the ticket machines you are faced with five of the fastest escalators ever made, three descending and two ascending. By these you reach a lower, spacious, arc-shaped corridor, from which six more escalators connect with a still lower corridor that branches out into tunnels and stairs leading to the six railway tracks. Tn the central area of the booking hail will be also the book, flower, fruit, sweet and tobacco stalls, not yet finished.

The whole of this great area is white and beautifully lit with diffused, inverted and concealed lighting set in the simplest of lamps. Some genius has kept the architecture plain and free of those bizarre effects that mar the looks of so many of our public constructions. Colour is provided for round the ambulatory by the show cases of a huge drapery firm, framed in bronze and marble in severe lines, in' a fine show of the best of the recent Underground posters (among the most interesting examples of good modern work); and in the lacquer-red casings of the steel pillars that support the whole of 'he Circus surface, a mere 15 feet above the floor of this booking hall. This colonnade of red pillars goes right round, and each pillar carries double cylindrical frosted glass lamps, letting through a soft but adequate light. Colour is further introduced by three huge decorative maps (only one yet finished) above the escalator arches. These are the work of a young man, Stephen Bone, the son of Muirhead Bone.

You might imagine that tills underground human rabbit warren, burrowing as it does round numerous ramifications far below the bed of the Thames, would be a cold and gloomy place, but a marvellous system of ventilation keeps it both warm and fresh. It was one of the most cheerful places in London to-day, when above we were freezing. The floor of very light stone, and the ceiling entirely of white tiles, ought to lie easily kept free of the worst effects of dust and fog.

It was a most varied j; nd. interestin;; crowd that inspected London’s latest marvel. From plutocrat to beggar, every sort of person carried a triumphant air, as if he had had a share in the job. I heard two admiring American men congratulating one of the officials, and actually admitting that there was nothing in America to touch it. Wandering round were Hindus, Chinese, Italians, French, Russians, negroes. South Americans, provincials and country people in for Christmas shopping. Large numbers of us grinned at each other as we changed halfcrowns for fun in the new machines, bought penny tickets, and went up and down the escalators. Though a great deal of the detail remains to be finished (the last week was a wild one, we are told), nothing in connection with the running of the trains was missing. One rf the most fascinating places in the whole show is the wonderful electrical arrangement by which great clock dials, on the outer wall of the ambulatory, record the passing and approach of the trains far down below as they run along the six tracks. Sheer magic, this. Sheer magic. And we are promised another wonder to take the place of the ticket machines ... a sort of Robot arrangement, that wiil receive our money and shoot our ticket at us. As the present machines are miracle enough, one wonders why the Robots should be necessary. But invention has become almost a disease.

One of the most astonishing things is the fact that every scrap of material that went down into all those caverns below, and every ton of clay that came out, were passed through one comparatively small hole in the centre of the Circus, the spot where the statue of Eros stood before he was temporarily removed to the Embankment Gardens. For four years now, as we have dodged the taxis and buses all round the Circus there has been staring at us a small, ugly hoarding that now assumes the aspect of a marvel. Lorries stood perennially beside it, but there didn’t seem to be anything remarkable happening. It is true that they were there night and day for four years. And a good deal ought to happen in that time. But nothing that ever happened there deranged by so much as a yard the route pf a bus or a limousine. And now J,

read that an area of 22,000 square feet was excavated; that 34,000 cubic yards of gravel and clay came up through that hole; that a network of light, gas and water-mains had to be diverted round a separate 550 ft subway; that for the oval booking hall a solid area, 155 feet long, 144 feet wide, and nine feet deep, had to be scooped entirely out, to say notning of the space for great descending escalator arches, the lower platforms, the stairs and tunnels. And down through the hole went lons and tons of steel and iron and wood. What epics <?f discomfort, of backache, of cold, have been endured by workers we shall never know. Further, I learn that the new con-

struction has been planned to cope with 50,000,000 passengers a year, and a service of 1,587 trains a day, or 120 an hour in the rush periods. When the station was opened the annual passage was one and a-halt millions. It is now twenty-five millions, an increase of a million a year. No wonder this spot has been named the Hub of the Universe.

Surprisingly enough, when 1 finally dragged myself out of the warmth and brightness up to the freezing surface, I saw a good many pedestrians dashing across the Circus in superb indifference to the marvel below. But perhaps they had glimpsed the crowds, and decided that on this opening day it was quicker to take the old way. Then if one cannot visit palaces, one can at least go to the latest cinema house tread there the softest carpets in the world, behold the largest velvet curtains, the most expensive rest and toilet rooms, sit in chairs as soft as those of any king’s, and look upon decorations as modern and ornate as those of the latest luxury hotel.

When the Empire .was opened on Leicester Square a month or so ago, it seemed as near the kitchen-maid’s dream of magnificence as a place could get, and it embodied luxuries and improvements known to no other amqsement house in the world. It seems incredible that in one mouth the Regal should have provided innovations.

Speaking of the carpets in these two houses, nothing more about the places has so impressed the Press. They are like feather oeds. One just sinks and sinks, and only vacuum cleaning makes them possible. They have been, or course, specially designed. Nothing in the Regal is as amazing as the red and blue carpet in the Empire tea-room, a long, dark room lit all day by artificial light. But the Regal carpets are much more artistic. That in the stalls lounge <s designed to go with the Chinese dfecor.

done by tbe same artist who did it for the May Fair Hotel. I recognised the same manner at once. The same low relief on the walls, the same furniture, and much better lighting fixtures. The circle lounge, which is Adam, ha.« a typically English carpet design to go with it. The beauty of the furniture surprised me . . . luscious settees and chairs. The ornament was more ostentatious than good. PseudoChinese bronze dragons on pedestals might have been left out, I thought, in so decent a general scheme. The auditoriums of both these houses are huge, holding something like 4,000 people. Both have remarkable systems of changing and swellinglighting and of ventilation. The Empire has a most welcome reduction in prices for certain times of the day, its beautiful dress circle being only eighteen pence up to 5.30 p.m. The cheapest seat in the Regal is Is ild, and that is just under the orchestra. The Regal auditorium upholstery is the most comfortable and the most artistic of any public place I know. Its interior is also extremely plain, as compared with the massive gilt in the Empire. One of the features of the

decoration is the fine iron work in front of the ventilating spaces. This has been done by a good artist, who did also the 12 pairs of wrought-iron doors leading from various parts of the house to the street. Unfortunately, the inside ventilators have had imitation flower-boxes with gay flowers set below them. These are part of the lighting fixtures, and are ingenious enough. But they spoil the effect of the fine screens.

Statistics are dull, I know, but those of this place are astonishing. Eightyseven firms contracted for its construction, decoration and fittings. One of the wonders of the place is the Unit organ. The souvenir tells me its weight is 15 tons, that it has 80 ranks of pipes, each rank consisting of from 61 to 244 pipes. The largest of these pipes is a tunnel 32 feet long. The tonal percussions include a Marimba harp of special construction, Glockenspiel, xylophone, celesta, vibraphone, sleigh bells, and two independent sets of small chimes, while the non-tonal percussions include sidedrum, bass drum, tom-tom, triangle, cymbals, Chinese gong, wood block, tambourine, jingles, castanets, and sand block. The screen effects controlled from the console include steamboat, railway, police and bird whistles, thunder, surf, wind howls, rain, airplane, slap on the face, klaxon, and motor horns, fire ajid telephone bells, horses’ hoofs, syren, bang drum, whip crack, ratchet, crockery smash, pistol shot, cannon effect, handbell, and the crow of a cock—in fact, every conceivable sound can be imitated. This should satisfy most of us. And besides this, by pressing a button and pulling out a stop the organist can play a carillon of 32 bells, 'lie bass bell weighing 6A cwt. This is the first time that proper hells have been used in a cinema and attached to an organ. These bells are tuned on the five tone harmonic principle, a rediscovered art. JANE MANDER