London's Avenue of Superfluities

Regent Street, in central London, is a sweeping boulevard laid out by the architect John Nash at the request of his close friend and client the Prince Regent, later King George IV Nash, who had made his name building country houses for aristocrats, was a Georgian-era precursor of New York's Robert Moses: a town planner who sought to separate the poorer, more squalid eastern side of London from its newer, grander, wealthier west Nash's instrument for dividing London was Regent Street, a wide concourse devoted to luxury shopping.

What the streets really recalled were images of London during the economic crisis of the nineteen-seventies, when Prime Minister Edward Heath imposed a three-day week to conserve fuel, and power cuts regularly dimmed even the busiest thoroughfares Beyond Regent Street, London's theatre district, around Leicester Square, was empty Farther north, ambulances with wailing sirens headed to University College Hospital, on the Euston Road, while nearby Harley Street, famous for its private medical clinics, was deserted.

Across the street lay the green expanse of Primrose Hill, one of London's loveliest parks On either side of Regent's Park Road, a pretty street of upscale boutiques and restaurants, rival florists were open, their storefronts bursting with bouquets, as if for a wedding, or a funeral. . Source