{"id":3092,"date":"2009-11-10T09:53:53","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T09:53:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/?p=3092"},"modified":"2009-11-10T09:53:53","modified_gmt":"2009-11-10T09:53:53","slug":"is-the-millennium-london-eye-a-good-thing-or-a-bad-thing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/is-the-millennium-london-eye-a-good-thing-or-a-bad-thing\/","title":{"rendered":"Is the Millennium London Eye a Good Thing or a Bad Thing?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-3095\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/10\/is-the-millennium-london-eye-a-good-thing-or-a-bad-thing\/img_1191\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3095\" title=\"London Eye Millennium Wheel\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/img_1191.jpg\" alt=\"The The Merlin Entertainments London Eye makes Central London resemble a Fun Fair\" width=\"775\" height=\"517\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/img_1191.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/img_1191-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/img_1191-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/img_1191-624x416.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Following in the footsteps of Britain&#8217;s most quoted historians (<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/1066_and_All_That\">W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman<\/a>) we should ask: is the London Eye is a <strong>Good Thing <\/strong>or a<strong> Bad Thing<\/strong>?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> 30m people have ridden in the Eye (@ \u00a317.5 each =\u00a3525m) and the owners pay the South Bank Centre \u00a32.5m\/year to rent a tiny strip of land. It thus enriches London and Londoners. This is a <strong>Good Thing<\/strong>. <\/li>\n<li>The London Eye makes Central London resemble a Theme Park: County Hall and the Palace of Westminster have lost their dignity and now resemble toys in a model village. This is a <strong>Bad Thing<\/strong>. <\/li>\n<li> The London Eye was originally given planning permission for 5 years but was then made permanent, thus enriching the owners at the expense of the public good. This was a <strong>Bad Thing<\/strong>. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>On balance the London Eye is therefore a <strong>Bad Thing<\/strong> and Lord Rogers was\u00a0 wrong. He declared &#8220;The Eye has done for London what the Eiffel Tower did for Paris&#8221;. Lord Rogers is a decent architect but has little understanding or urban design and no understandisng of landscape architecture or geography. The Eiffel Tower does\u00a0 not dominate the historic core of Paris.<br \/>\n The London Eye should be moved downstream of Tower Bridge, to a site which would not be dwarfed by its scale (eg Chamber&#8217;s Wharf). It should also be hoisted by 30m (from 135 metres  to 165 metres so that it is higher than the Star of Nanchang (160 m). This would be a <strong>Very Good Thing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3096\" style=\"width: 785px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a rel=\"attachment wp-att-3096\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/2009\/11\/10\/is-the-millennium-london-eye-a-good-thing-or-a-bad-thing\/aut_41972003-10-19t141306\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3096\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3096\" title=\"St James Park London Eye\" src=\"http:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/aut_41972003-10-19t141306.jpg\" alt=\"Seen from St James Park, the London Eye makes Whitehall resemble a themed hotel in Disneyland\" width=\"775\" height=\"582\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/aut_41972003-10-19t141306.jpg 775w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/aut_41972003-10-19t141306-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/aut_41972003-10-19t141306-768x577.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/11\/aut_41972003-10-19t141306-624x469.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 775px) 100vw, 775px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3096\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seen from St James Park, the London Eye makes Whitehall resemble a themed hotel in Disneyland<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br class=\"spacer_\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Following in the footsteps of Britain&#8217;s most quoted historians (W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman) we should ask: is the London Eye is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing? 30m people have ridden in the Eye (@ \u00a317.5 each =\u00a3525m) and the owners pay the South Bank Centre \u00a32.5m\/year to rent a tiny [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,16,19,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3092"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3092\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3092"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3092"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.gardenvisit.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3092"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}