Virtually since it was built, over 300 years ago, Soho has been synonymous with boozing, coffee-shops and sleaze. In the 18th century, Samuel Johnson founded a writer’s club at the Turk’s Head, then in Gerrard Street; in Victorian times, punters thronged to the hooker nightclubs and hostess bars off Leicester Square; in the 20s, international luminaries got down and dirty in a host of semi-legal niteries after visiting charlie dealer ‘Brilliant’ Chang. Historically known for its French population – the French House was where the French Resistance met during World War II. Now more familiar for Chinatown, which has colonised the area round Gerrard Street with endless Peking duck window displays, bilingual shop signs and scarlet dragon arches.
Despite attempts at gentrification, and the efforts of police, Soho remains a centre of metropolitan weirdness. Off the main streets, which run from Oxford Street to Shaftesbury Avenue, down the endless winding, narrow alleyways, you can find anything from brothels to peepshows and transsexual dominatrixes. Old Compton Street is, quite literally, a queer street. From all-night coffee-shops to (naturally) sex-shops and bars, Soho has everything to offer the gay about town.
Newly developed bar areas such as Shoreditch and Notting Hill may challenge Soho but it remains the epicentre of London’s independent bar scene.
