[HN Gopher] BT Tower is to be turned into a hotel
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BT Tower is to be turned into a hotel
Author : beardyw
Score : 55 points
Date : 2024-02-21 09:47 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ianvisits.co.uk)
| timthorn wrote:
| Not mentioned is the fact that the BT Tower was designed to be a
| node in the microwave backbone network. There are landmark towers
| across the country, though no others are also restaurants:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Telecom_microwave_netw...
| tallanvor wrote:
| "For example, the Tower's microwave aerials were removed more
| than a decade ago, as they were no longer needed to carry
| telecommunications traffic from London to the rest of the
| country."
|
| It might not go into details, but it does mention it.
| jonatron wrote:
| To me it's surprising they didn't keep them for backup /
| resiliency. There's a lot of rats and mice in London, and
| they can and do chew through fibre.
| tetris11 wrote:
| Cheaper to replace fiber during the day when most of the
| customers are out, than to hire a rare specialized
| technician to maintain it maybe
| poooogles wrote:
| From memory at the time there was corrosion on the fixings
| and it would've been exceedingly expensive to
| repair/replace.
| mhh__ wrote:
| We don't do backup or resiliency anymore in search of
| "value for money"
| rsynnott wrote:
| Maintaining redundant fibre links (which exist) would
| likely be cheaper than maintaining a decades-old microwave
| system (I would wonder if they even have the appropriate
| spectrum licenses anymore, anyway).
| rjmunro wrote:
| I think it's just that the bandwidth of the microwaves is
| not much by today's standards. It was capable of 150,000
| simultaneous telephone calls, which is something like
| 10Gbs. It may be that modern numbers were higher, but
| possibly not much as you have to share the microwave
| spectrum with other uses. In a fibre you get the whole
| optical spectrum to yourself, so you can achieve much
| higher speeds. You can also run many fibres in the same
| ducting and increase bandwidth that way.
|
| For backup / resiliency you just run more fibres via
| different routes.
| mickeyp wrote:
| Fitzrovia is laced with fibre; the entire area is/was host
| to a large number of broadcast service providers, media
| companies, telcos, etc.
|
| Running out of fibre is not likely in that part of London.
| NikkiA wrote:
| Most of them were along the ECML and WCML, you could see them
| in several spots from a train ride.
|
| They were not big enough to contain a restaurant, just two big
| dishes on top of a pole, on top of a hill.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Revolving restaurants! It's a fantastic place to eat, the sad
| thing has been that BT just couldn't exploit the value of it in
| terms of corporate entertainment. I think it'll be lovely for
| people to be able to have a meal up there.
| yesod wrote:
| I've not plotted it myself, but I'm told that if you plot the
| links to other main microwave nodes, and then look at embassies
| from foreign nations....
| ilikerashers wrote:
| Lots of odd changes going on in cities right now. Offices being
| converted to hotels and flats in an attempt to return to
| profitability.
|
| Retail spaces are being turned into "experiences" with climbing
| walls, gyms and golf ranges taking over.
|
| Upside is our office rent is now super cheap but I don't know
| who's footing the bill for all that property.
|
| I also doubt the climbing walls are as profitable per-square-
| foot.
| baq wrote:
| > I don't know who's footing the bill for all that property.
|
| The landlord, for now, until debt matures.
|
| Then, the banks^Wtaxpayer.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > right now.
|
| Total retail space in many countries (notably in the US, but
| elsewhere, too) has been ramping down for a decade or so.
| Frankly there's far too much of it.
| DebtDeflation wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retail_apocalypse
| glimshe wrote:
| Considering the Internet, it is too much. But a lot of the
| real estate we see today was built or approved before, well,
| Amazon became what it is.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Oh, sure, but that's just how things go. Things change,
| certain facilities become useless and are either demolished
| or repurposed. Practically every coastal city in the world
| has or had some sort of redundant pre-containerisation port
| facility, say; often it will have been demolished and built
| on in the 80s or 90s (after containerisation, ports got
| _way_ smaller).
| mytailorisrich wrote:
| In this case it seems that the tower is no longer useful as
| telecommunications hub so BT decided to get rid of it.
|
| There are not many options for such a structure, which cannot
| be destroyed as it is listed.
| TruthWillHurt wrote:
| It sometimes feels like London is a theme-park designed to
| separate people from their money and entertain the Plebs
| workforce.
|
| This (and the giant Ferris wheel) certainly don't help.
| simonbarker87 wrote:
| Sounds better than a city full of shops designed to separate
| people from their money buying stuff they don't need.
|
| Life is about building memories, connecting with people and
| sharing experiences. Having a variety of places to do that
| (update: including shops) is nice in my opinion.
| Xophmeister wrote:
| > Sounds better than a city full of shops designed to
| separate people from their money buying stuff they don't
| need.
|
| London has plenty of those.
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| > London has plenty of those.
|
| If you want American candy, sure.
|
| _(To American HNers: this isn 't a joke about you. Or even
| really that much of a joke, alas)_
| andybak wrote:
| https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/04/us-
| swe...
| rsynnott wrote:
| We have these in Ireland, too. Always vaguely assumed
| they were a money laundering thing; never anyone in them,
| really.
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| Various hypotheses. Money laundering, VAT scamming, tax
| abuse, or just outrageous profiteering based on never
| being around when the bill for VAT or business rates come
| due.
|
| There is one famous, very real, very popular American
| candy store in London -- _Kingdom Of Sweets_ -- which is
| absolutely legit and has been trading for twenty years,
| having started elsewhere. It was famous in British geek
| culture for being where you bought all the sweets you
| heard US geeks talking about on Foothills and Surfers and
| the like.
|
| And then there's a couple of likely legit competitors,
| and then... a whole layer of fakery, fraud and shell
| companies.
| darrenf wrote:
| CyberCandy was legit and famous and existed for a looong
| time, but shut down in 2016 :(
| blowski wrote:
| London also has a lot of fantastic free parks, museums,
| galleries, libraries. So I'm not sure I understand your
| criticism.
| rsynnott wrote:
| Eh? This is a giant microwave telecom tower. They're all over
| the world (find a large city that doesn't have a convenient
| nearby hill, and there are probably one or two) and they're
| ~all disused. Fibre made them essentially useless decades ago,
| and the London one doesn't even have its antennae anymore.
|
| It's presumably listed, so they can't just demolish it. What do
| you _want_ them to do with it, if not this?
| petercooper wrote:
| It can't be disputed that (central) London is one of the
| world's biggest tourist attractions, and much of it is geared
| towards activities. But it's far from the only factor to life
| in a city that's larger, more diverse, and more distinctive
| than ever. It's one of the most varied places in the entire
| world when it comes to demography, wealth, cultures, and
| opportunities - is this a bad thing?
| dmazin wrote:
| This could be a cultural loss. Aren't some floors essentially
| museums, with much older equipment intact?
| snoutie wrote:
| It would be a shame if they closed the access to the pool of
| equipment to the public. But then again I would guess that a
| museum inside a hotel is not contradictory.
| niklasrde wrote:
| There's general public access to somewhere in the BT Tower?
| Do you have more info on that?
| chedabob wrote:
| It opens once a year to the public. This is from last year
| https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/tickets-alert-tours-
| of-...
| danjc wrote:
| Where's Tom Scott when you need him :)
| seanhunter wrote:
| Really fun fact about that building. When it was built it was a
| "list X" facility for UK national security which meant that
| although it was a massive building in the middle of Fitzrovia and
| visible virtually anywhere in London, it didn't appear on maps
| and the government would officially deny its existence.
| devnullbrain wrote:
| Rough, try getting directions to your hotel and nobody can tell
| you.
| Nursie wrote:
| Yeah, I remember watching a documentary on it about 10 or so
| years ago, and even then they said it wasn't signposted from
| anywhere and it was weirdly hard to find at street level.
| m-i-l wrote:
| Another fun fact - it had a rotating restaurant on the 34th
| floor called The Top of the Tower, which was operated by
| Butlins, and made one revolution every 23 minutes, but was
| closed in 1971 following a bombing[0]. Apparently there was
| talk of reopening the restaurant for the London Olympics in
| 2012 (not clear whether it would have rotated or not) but this
| didn't happen. Will be interesting to see if the hotel gets the
| rotating restaurant working again after all this time.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BT_Tower
| cs2716 wrote:
| It would be great if it re-opened, they seem to be going out
| of fashion. The UK had three and now has zero!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolving_restaurants
| mc32 wrote:
| Great list, but it seems it could be missing some entries.
|
| The Hyatt Regency in downtown SF had a rotating restaurant
| (at one point called The Equinox?), but it no longer
| rotates and is no longer open to the public. It bled too
| much cash as people would go in and nurse a drink to get
| the full 360 view.
| drcongo wrote:
| I had the privilege of attending an event in there while it
| was rotating a few years back. A real bucket list tick-off.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| Fun fact #3
|
| The Post Office Tower, as it was once called, was actually
| rebuilt after having been destroyed by a giant kitten in the
| early 1970s.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQ78rhjthQY
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten_Kong
| listxthrowaway wrote:
| Nitpick, but "List X" means somewhere that holds classified
| material, not somewhere that doesn't appear on maps. In fact
| for many List X sites it would surely be a dead giveaway if
| there was a gap on maps where it ought to be!
|
| According to Wikipedia and other sources [1], the BT tower was
| on maps (at least OS maps) anyway.
|
| [1] https://londonist.com/london/history/a-brief-history-of-
| the-...
| defrost wrote:
| > In fact for many List X sites it would surely be a dead
| giveaway if there was a gap on maps where it ought to be!
|
| Yep.
|
| and for many years Soviet agents could easily find classified
| sites simply by looking for gaps on OS maps ( true story )
|
| https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2185107/a-very-
| brit...
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06b36q3
|
| ( I worked in mapping for decades and have some early OS maps
| with defence sites left blank )
| flir wrote:
| I know an area that was just white space for most of the
| 19th, so it wasn't just to fool the Soviets, it was to fool
| the French too. Didn't get properly fixed until the 1933
| map.
|
| A big strip of empty paper surrounded by carefully shaded
| fields definitely stands out. It makes me wonder if the
| mapmakers could just about handle leaving data out, but
| couldn't countenance putting fake data in. Interestingly,
| the earliest OS 6" map has that area shaded as marsh, so at
| some point someone made a choice to leave it blank instead.
|
| There's a fort nearby that's back by 1911, and disappears
| again for 1938. Guess it wasn't as obsolete as they thought
| it was.
| notahacker wrote:
| Just for fun: the most boring grid square on current OS
| maps https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/81429
|
| Definitely a black ops site, and don't let the photo
| convince you otherwise.
|
| More seriously, as soon as satellite imagery or even to a
| lesser extent aerial photography or agents driving around
| with cameras were a thing, putting the secure site in
| with a really boring symbol like a landfill site or
| description like Ind Est would have been a much better
| disguise.
| tialaramex wrote:
| It also, IIRC has a special exemption in which unlike almost
| all buildings its elevators are for use in fires. In a typical
| building the notices tell you emphatically you should _not_ use
| elevators if there 's a fire, you should all use the stairs
| which are rated to handle the entire population of the building
| leaving in a timely fashion. But (if I'm thinking of the right
| tower) the BT Tower was specified so that the only effective
| way to evacuate the building during a fire is with elevators,
| for which purpose those elevators are rated differently.
| gadders wrote:
| "And no, it wasn't a state secret until 1993 -- otherwise it
| wouldn't be in the map from the 1983 A-Z London."
|
| I think the article has been updated. Or perhaps you mean
| further back in time?
| defrost wrote:
| Another fun fact - the _orignal_ Goodies episode _Kitten Kong_
| featuring Twinkle the kitten taking down the BT | Post Office
| Tower is presumed lost.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tb59dEHRt5Q
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kitten_Kong
| tremarley wrote:
| The BT Tower is also known as the Post Office Tower. It used to
| be the tallest building in London.
|
| The reason it's round is so that it would withstand a nuclear
| attack blast wave, if London was ever attacked.
| londons_explore wrote:
| > would withstand a nuclear attack blast wave,
|
| I can't imagine round vs square makes more than a marginal
| impact on shock wave resistance...
| eep_social wrote:
| If quora [1] is to be believed, your imagination has failed
| you by a drag factor of 50%.
|
| [1] https://www.quora.com/Do-curved-surfaces-have-an-
| aerodynamic...
| heavenlyblue wrote:
| And it has a rotating restaurant such that it would generate
| electricity due to the wind caused by the nuclear blast due to
| Magnus effect.
|
| /s
| throwawayben wrote:
| https://360gigapixels.com/london-320-gigapixel-panorama/
|
| Reminded me of this super high resolution panorama photo from it.
| I think it was a quite impressive achievement at the time (2012)
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