If that's the deal, it's crazy that some of those places are getting away with then discouraging the public from actually going there. Book your visit in advance! Present ID! Photography forbidden! This grumpy security guard will be hovering nearby <3
It's like Nathan For You S03E01 where a store advertises a $1 TV, then tells the drawn in would-be customers to please respect the black tie dress code, crawl through a tiny door, and squeeze past the alligator.
It's a fantastic idea, but enforcement sucks on intangible things like this. In a few years time I'm sure it will be 'closed for maintenance' then never reopen to the public or a nice restaurant will go up there and suddenly you'll need a restaurant booking to use the lift.
This shouldn't be hard to enforce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Fenchurch_Street#Sky_garden
But it doesn't explain the ridiculous security (scanning gates, had to take off my hat and belt, insulin pump was inspected), the prohibition of "professional" photography equipment, prohibition of own food and drinks (again, diabetes, I want to carry some lemonade and a bar for emergency), etc etc.
Is it to counter terrorism? To boost consuming at the establishments? Or is it a lame excuse thats in reality just a higher bar to entry?
I was thinking more about his experience with e.g. the last one on the page, Roof Garden at The Post Building:
> I still don't understand why it's here nor why it's open daily, nor why they insist on Photo ID "and a full written name" before they'll let you up. However I didn't get the chance to test this out yesterday because when I arrived the roof terrace was "closed due to essential maintenance work", inconveniencing probably nobody but myself.
To be fair it's not just that, you won't find many actual londoners in central full stop unless they're going to work
[0]: https://www.thetimes.com/uk/london/article/shoreditch-works-...
Basically their jobs are easier at the expense of the people.
The roof has a maximum capacity, not just physically, but for safe evacuation in case of a sudden problem. Hence the limits on attendance.
You'd like to prevent some idiotic or predatory behavior - no one should be able to throw things down onto the street, take over half of the available space for their influencer recordings or unpack a rope and start an inpromptu tightrope walking performance. Roofs often host telecommunication equipment which is expensive and has some strategic value, you'd like to prevent someone from damaging it or at least have a clear identity of a person that did just that.
It is also a place with very limited escape routes, so any panic may translate into crushed people. E.g. no guns, even empty ones, no explosives, nothing that is easily flammable.
London's vibe is: 'privately owned, and you're lucky to be here'
Edit: I'm British btw (and currently sat in a pub in London) in case people downvote me thinking I'm a yank lol. There are many people who dislike London and the UK who aren't yanks
Protesting is a legal right but the authorities do have the right to restrict it for public order reasons. For example they often will insist on separate routes to keep conflicting groups apart. It makes sense too.
You have to notify the police not get approval. They can "impose conditions and restrictions" for safety or to limit the rights of others to travel freely, after which they'll also be somewhat liable to protect you from counter-protesters, or lunatics trying to drive their car at you.
Just about every country requires some kind of advance notice if its not just a few people walking along the pavement/sidewalk and your going to obstruct traffic or block others movement
https://groups.friendsoftheearth.uk/resources/your-rights-an...
Saw many non-Arsenal fans cheering for PSG yesterday.
edit: responding to your edit, of course many British people hate London and for many valid reasons, but your reasoning is very American. Very few British people share that American view of freedom and would describe London as “privately owned”.
I was curious about what type of arguments you could make to win a case like this.
"The Supreme Court commented that the degree of overlooking from visitors to the Tate gallery was so extreme it subjected the residents to being “much like being on display in a zoo” and held that there is no reason why constant visual intrusion cannot give rise to liability for nuisance."
https://www.tlt.com/insights-and-events/insight/supreme-cour...
Really strange take, that applies to so many situations where tourists gather
Supreme Court rulings should be the most highly scrutinized and criticized of all legal rulings, and include the ethical and moral implications behind them.
The apartment building was built years before the Tate Modern opened their viewing floor. After the Tate Modern viewing floor opened, visitors to the Tate Modern began photographing and videoing and watching people in the neighbouring apartment building.
The judge reasonably determined that there is some sacrifice of privacy made when choosing to live in a glass apartment building, but the Tate Modern's viewing floor's compromise of privacy was so egregious that it should not be allowed regardless of planning permission.
There are many buildings all over London that look over one another, many of those occupied by very very rich people, it was not corruption.
A busy viewing terrace is not an ordinary use of space, building one looking right into private homes isn't cool regardless of how wealthy the residents of those homes are.
I'm looking at the pictures in this article and that doesn't seem egregious: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-64481260
In a tall apartment / skyscraper I bet not more than 10% ever have or close their curtain. Also they paid those prices to look at that view so they want to do that. (A flat there is £1-5M)
https://nypost.com/2024/02/29/business/california-hoa-with-f...
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/02/california-w...
https://www.hcn.org/articles/public-lands-a-battle-over-beac...
Bit of an aside, but although the area around Greenwich is lovely, I've always preferred walking the Thames Path out west, eg Putney to Richmond. Very peaceful and green, and IIRC all pretty accessible (apart from a stretch of the path near Barnes that is completely underwater when the tide is high).
I do recall several difficult bits in the area you describe. One part seemed to have some new "food market" development, which was completely closed when we tried to go through. It got weirder the further we got and we questioned whether we'd gone wrong somehow. Eventually the path just stopped forcing us to double back and make for the road which added a mile or two to the walk.
We haven't had any such problems along to the west, all the way to Maidenhead so far.
>City Hall sits entirely on a private estate owned by a Kuwaiti investment company. Protesters are not allowed to gather without corporate permission.
Or closed for years at a time due to construction.
My experience is that it works well in general, but some landowners are better than others, and some highway authorities (which enforce the laws) are more zealous than others. Most of the issues I see around me is farmers allowing crops to grow through low use footpaths such that they become impassable.
The other tricky bit of PRoWs is that any path used by the public for 20 years continuously, without force, secrecy, or the landowner's permission, is legally presumed to be a public right of way, even if it isn't shown on the definitive map kept by the local authority. That can lead to legal fights e.g. [1] and [2]. There are also 'permissive footpaths' where landowners have agreed to allow the public to pass, but not become a PRoW. There are also s106 agreements (planning obligations) where developers must allow the public to use land as a footpath. The Thames Path has a mix of these.
In Scotland, there is a more general 'right to roam' which allows anybody to access most land (excepting buildings and their curtilages, military sites, and other obvious exceptions), but there are affirmative duties to maintain PRoWs that don't apply to open access land making them still relevant. England and Wales have some limited open access land as well, but much much less of it. NI has no open access land and (subjectively) fewer public footpaths.
[1] https://www.ramblers.org.uk/news/ramblers-win-court-appeal-1... [2] https://www.ube.ac.uk/whats-happening/articles/pippa-middlet...
but yes there is very sparse information and instead of examples i get "NetworkError when attempting to fetch resource." and it says "free" here and there but free forever, free until?
Otherwise there are plenty of other roof terraces which are bars/restaurants. Typically more enjoyable as you don't have to book tickets and you get to enjoy a drink.
Though while the bar is reasonable, Aqua Shard is overpriced if you're going their to eat (the food is good, but you can get better food for the same/similar price elsewhere, including at Hutong, one floor up).
But if you're going to a bar in the Shard, Gong (52nd floor), Ting (35th) and Hutong (32nd) are all higher up. Gong and Ting also has the advantage that you don't have to pass through that ridiculous security scanner (entrance is via the Shangri La hotel)
The Connaught is up to 40, but more of a fancy establishment.
The space was originally a beloved "public roof garden" which I believe was done as a real estate developer concession to the city. The landscaping itself was whatever, but it was a nice escape from the industrial university campus neighborhood. Get away from your university or industry lab, at any time of day or night, and go up above the commotion, to more sunlight or a view of the stars, with a friend.
Then Google wanted to expand their office space. IIUC, there was a very strange city committee approval, without a quorum, by a single person, who stepped down afterwards.
Much of the public roof garden space was taken. And what remains was remodeled into a nano-Googleplex style grounds party deck, outside their windows. And surveillance cameras, and security guards who often make their presence known.
But it's still technically open to the public. (Challenge: From Broadway, try to spot the signage for it, in a great moment of visual design low-contrast white-on-light-pink signage, amidst larger bold high-contrast color decorations. Even if I tell you it's in a recessed corner beside a parking garage, and you have the benefit of StreetView rather than walking along the sidewalk, and I even tell you what color to look for, you'll have trouble. Under normal conditions, you'd have no idea the public access concession was even there, which presumably was the task given to the designer who must hate that this is what their career has come to.)
And when it's not locked, you can go up there, and get a lookout view of some of the city, while being under the evil eye yourself, and constantly feel like you should leave, which you soon do.
Maybe because it's about 4 stories up, almost straight up from the sidewalk, and at a bit of an angle if you're not coming from the bridge, and above something that says it's just advertising the parking garage to cars. Oh, and looks like blocked from sidewalk by trees, if you're coming from the neighborhood rather than the bridge. So maybe visible to passing cars, but not to the generally car-free people in the neighborhood.
(The first couple times of actively looking for the entrance, I walked past it, before doubling back, and finding the white-on-light-pink signage at street level.)
That site has photos of ~40 locations, about half of those listed on the government-maintained list (which lacks photos): https://data.sfgov.org/Culture-and-Recreation/Privately-Owne...
If you want to find the one that's nearest to you, you can look here (no photos): https://tools.encona.com/sfpopos
Most are fairly claustrophobic. The Ikebukuro Seibu building had an amazing, open roof garden with this big reflecting pool round table: https://danzuka.earth/019_seibu-ikebukuro-roof-garden/ . It was pretty quiet, and it was especially great because there are basically no public tables in Ikebukuro, so you could buy food at the shops below and eat it on the roof (plus it had toilets, trash cans, and drink vending machines!)
They just demolished it and replaced 70% of the space with a big BBQ restaurant though. So I feel like either whatever legal requirement they had to create the space must have expired, or maybe it was used as part of the initial pitch when they were getting permits for the building and now that it's established they can walk back guarantees or whatever...
bummer
If you've got friends/fam with you it is definitely worth paying for the observation deck at the shard.
