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Location Information:
Piccadilly Circus is a famous road
junction and public space of
London's West End in the City of
Westminster, built in 1819 to
connect Regent Street with the major
shopping street of Piccadilly. In
this context, a circus, from the
Latin word meaning "circle", is a
round open space at a street
junction.
Piccadilly now links directly to the
theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue, as
well as the Haymarket, Coventry
Street (onwards to Leicester
Square), and Glasshouse Street. The
Circus is close to major shopping
and entertainment areas in the heart
of the West End. Its status as a
major traffic intersection has made
Piccadilly Circus a busy meeting
place and a tourist attraction in
its own right.
The
Circus is particularly known for its
video display and neon signs mounted
on the corner building on the
northern side, as well as the
Shaftesbury memorial fountain and
statue of an archer popularly known
as Eros (sometimes called The Angel
of Christian Charity, but intended
to be Anteros). It is surrounded by
several noted buildings, including
the London Pavilion and Criterion
Theatre. Directly underneath the
plaza is Piccadilly Circus tube
station, part of the London
Underground rapid transit system.
Sanyo's sign is the oldest out of
the six, having been installed in
the late 1980s and remaining
unchanged ever since. However,
earlier Sanyo signs with older logos
have occupied that position since at
least 1980.
TDK
replaced the space formerly occupied
by Kodak in 1990. Their sign has
remained almost unchanged since,
although in 2001, the colour of the
background lamps were changed from
green to blue, and the words "Audio
& Video Tape" and "Floppy Disks"
under the logo were removed. The
same space has been previously used
by Fujifilm.
McDonald's added a sign in the
mid-1980s, replacing one for BASF.
In 2001, the sign was changed from
neon to an animated LED screen,
which was further changed to a
bigger, brighter LED screen in 2008.
Samsung replaced a sign for
Panasonic in November 1994, and the
sign was upgraded from neon to LED
in 2005. Before Panasonic Canon
occupied that spot.
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