Bow Street condos?

BOW STREET police station in London, one of the most famous stations in the world, is likely to be sold as a site for luxury flats, offices and shops, it was confirmed yesterday.

The Metropolitan Police Authority has been told by legal experts that it cannot give the building to a group planning to turn it into a national police museum and must instead make a commercial profit from it.

Commercial property experts say that Bow Street, the cells of which once held Oscar Wilde and Dr Crippen, the murderer, would be worth at least £25 million. . .

Its great riot doors closed behind some of the most famous criminals and fugitives of modern times. Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy, who flew to Britain in a misguided attempt to broker a peace deal, took his exercise in the yard.

William Joyce, known as “Lord Haw Haw”, the traitor who broadcast Nazi propaganda to Britain, was held in the cells a few years later, as was the Irish playwright Brendan Behan and the East End gangster Reggie Kray.

Posted by David on August 11, 2003 2:47 PM