Quite embarrassing

[YorkshireBear]

Quite embarrassing moment i thought i'd share cos well i deserve it.

On way to london, going slowly through alexandra palace station, look out of window i see this magnificent palace. So i said to my girlfriend look at that, ill have to look up what it is when i get home, its near alexandra palace station. She starts smiling, i carry on writing a note to myself in my phone. She stops me and says, you know james, judging by the station we've just gone through do you think by any chance it could be alexandra palace?
*Face palm*

 

[MidnightFlyer]

You wouldn't had had that problem 20-30 years ago when the station was called Wood Green...

It is a stunning building though, sadly the South London equivalent never survived (Crystal Palace)

 

[deltic1989]

Doee Ally' Pally' still have the mast on the top?? Not been down that way for a few years now.. FYI Jim Alexandra Palace was used by the BBC for early television broadcasts. If you havent found out all the facts already Wikipedia usually has all the answers. It really is a magnificent building though.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Doee Ally' Pally' still have the mast on the top??
. . . . .
It really is a magnificent building though.

Yes, the mast is still there, though not the same mast and transmitter as was used in a BBC TV ident logo 50 years or so ago!

I agree that it is a grand building. I was working in it when it suffered the devastating fire around 1980. The glass ceiling of the main hall wasn't made of glass at all, but some sort of clear plastic or perspex. Sheets of that burning and melting perspex floated through the air on the uprush of cold air created by the fire, rapidly spreading fire as the fell onto wooden floors elsewhere. All the fire hoses had perished at their ends so were useless.
There was grave doubt that the building would survive and at one point Harringay Council were expecting demolition. I think it was offered for sale at a price of £0:01p with the obligation to make it safe.

I remember wandering around the abandoned underground station at the back, too; the whole building looks quite different but equally imposing when approached from the streets to the north.

When travelling on the ECML, there is a great contrast between the grand mast at Ally Pally and the next TV transmitter northwards. Its a tiny rod sticking up from the rim of the abandoned iron gasometer frame between New Barnet and S.Hadley Wood tunnel (on the east of the tracks).

. . . . sadly the South London equivalent never survived (Crystal Palace)

As another piece of ECML trivia, its just conceivable that at this time of year you would be able to see the two iron poles from Crystal Palace which were 'planted' in Holme Fen and which are used to illustrate the sinking of the peat. You'd have to know where to look through the Silver Birches at Holme (also to the east), but they are in there!

 

[Bungle73]

Yes, the mast is still there, though not the same mast and transmitter as was used in a BBC TV ident logo 50 years or so ago!

I agree that it is a grand building. I was working in it when it suffered the devastating fire around 1980. The glass ceiling of the main hall wasn't made of glass at all, but some sort of clear plastic or perspex. Sheets of that burning and melting perspex floated through the air on the uprush of cold air created by the fire, rapidly spreading fire as the fell onto wooden floors elsewhere. All the fire hoses had perished at their ends so were useless.
There was grave doubt that the building would survive and at one point Harringay Council were expecting demolition. I think it was offered for sale at a price of £0:01p with the obligation to make it safe.

I remember wandering around the abandoned underground station at the back, too; the whole building looks quite different but equally imposing when approached from the streets to the north.

When travelling on the ECML, there is a great contrast between the grand mast at Ally Pally and the next TV transmitter northwards. Its a tiny rod sticking up from the rim of the abandoned iron gasometer frame between New Barnet and S.Hadley Wood tunnel (on the east of the tracks).

As another piece of ECML trivia, its just conceivable that at this time of year you would be able to see the two iron poles from Crystal Palace which were 'planted' in Holme Fen and which are used to illustrate the sinking of the peat. You'd have to know where to look through the Silver Birches at Holme (also to the east), but they are in there!

That wasn't an Underground station. It was on a branch from a line that used to go to Finsbury Park. It was all supposed to converted for Underground use, but in the end only part of it was.

There's been two fires in the building: one in 1873, just after it first opened; and the 1980 one.