West End Extra - Letters: Message for posterity

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 27 April 2007

Message for posterity

• WHAT do we know of Albert Grant? He was a Victorian nonentity – a shady character involved dubious financial deals.
His monument is in the garden in Leicester Square. He reclaimed a notorious slum and had it laid out as a haven for “the free use and enjoyment of the public”.
There was little enjoyment to be had there last week. From Saturday to Tuesday, the public was excluded in favour of an invading army of lorries, duckboards, screen equipment and barriers.To what end? A première? Who knows – anyone who frequents the gardens for relief from the moronic inferno of the West End shuns the place at such times.
Seemingly these outbursts of elaborate construction work sandwiching some tawdry and banal entertainment are the fullfilment of the ambitions for the Square of Sir Simon Milton.
What do we know of Councillor Milton? No nonentity he and a man of gleaming probity to boot. His message for posterity may not be so uplifting as his Victorian forbear – “Dude, pimp this space”?
H CONLON
Charing Cross Road WC2

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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