Goodge Street Underground Station

In the middle of the lock-down in London, I see that the tube lines were closing some of the stations as they would lead to the travelers being too close together inside the station concourse. One of the stations that was closed I noticed was Goodge Street station.

In mid to late 1964, when I began attending the Regent Street Polytechnic, my family and I would get on the Northern Line tube at Burnt Oak Station and go "into Town." The tube stop that I would get off at, was Goodge Street.

In those days I would walk the back routes, passed old Victorian office buildings, factories and pubs and a landscape that had barely changed from the 19th century! I walked passed Cleveland Street, crossover Great Titchfield Street to get to little Titchfield Street. That was where my College was located.
I used to walk past La Scala, the theatre that the Beatles featured in A Hard Days Night movie, with all the screaming girls lined up outside. Beatlemania in its most crazy times. Now it was empty and forgotten as I walked by it in the mornings reflecting on the crazy scenes of the movie.

The most significant thing about Goodge Street tube station and most likely the reason why they closed it during Covid-19 pandemic, is the fact that you can’t get to the platform via stairs or escalators. You have to use two large lift, as the Brits call them; elevators in North America. There is a picture below showing what they look like. When I was exiting the tube heading for the outside world we would be packed into this structure.

Luckily it never jammed or failed me in the years that I utilized it.
As I familiarized myself with all the streets around my college and London's crazy Sixties locations, I began taking different tube stations in my daily journey and experiencing a wonderful time to be young in a city that was at the centre of a rapidly changing society.

My old school buildings have all been torn down and the College is now The University of Westminster. Most of the old Victorian buildings have been demolished and the area is full of modern gleaming skyscrapers, but I have not forgotten that lift at Goodge Street and its puke green paint!