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Is Kings Cross London still a red light district?

King's Cross: Culture, cuisine and clubbing in a former red light zone. The Cinderella-like transformation of King's Cross from notorious red light district in the 1990s to established cultural capital seems unlikely to anyone old enough to remember the bad old days.



No, the King’s Cross area of London has undergone one of the most dramatic urban regenerations in European history and is no longer a red-light district. Throughout the 1970s and 80s, the neighborhood was notorious for crime and street-level prostitution, but the multi-billion-pound King's Cross Central redevelopment project has completely transformed the landscape. Today, the area is an upscale cultural and tech hub, home to the global headquarters of companies like Google and Meta (Facebook), as well as the prestigious Central Saint Martins art school. The former industrial warehouses have been converted into "Coal Drops Yard," a luxury shopping and dining destination. St. Pancras International station next door further solidified the area's prestige as the terminus for the Eurostar. While, like any major urban transport hub, the area requires standard street smarts at night, it is now considered one of the trendiest and safest places to live and work in Central London. The "seedy" reputation of the past is now confined to history books and older films, replaced by fountains, open-air cinemas, and high-end residential lofts.

People Also Ask

Kings Cross Station and St. Pancras International are two separate stations, leading to different retailers. They're just across the road from each other.

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(Zone 1) Live The station is currently quiet. It is busier than it usually is at this time.

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King's Cross, between 1923 and 1930. Courtesy of Transport for London at the London Transport Museum. King's Cross is the more senior of the two stations. Built by the Great Northern Railway, it opened in 1852.

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Less than 5 mins, even if you walk really. really. slowly. St Pancras is literally over the other side of the street from Kings Cross, and they are so close they share the same tube station.

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Your passport will be checked by UKBA security staff before being checked by French passport control. This will only take a few minutes.

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Much of the land to the north of the canal remained open fields. In a move to raise the rather tarnished image of the area, a statue of King George IV was erected at the Battle Bridge crossroads in 1830. The statue attracted ridicule and was demolished in 1842, but the new name for the area – 'King's Cross' – stuck.

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