Friday, December 28, 2012
King’s Cross New Year’s Eve round-up
Still not decided where to go for New Year? Here’s what’s happening in King’s Cross.
Scared to Dance at The Lion
**SOLD OUT** Regular indie disco Scared to Dance has sold out their NYE party but spare tickets may show up on their Twitter/Facebook pages (see link below).
Price: £10
Finishes: 3am
Information/tickets
The Doctors Orders NYE party at The Big Chill House
Expect wall-to-wall hip-hop.
Price: £20
Finishes: 5am
Information/tickets
New Years Especial at Camino
With free admission this one will fill up early.
Price: Free
Finishes: 4am
Information/tickets
Rockaoke vs Rockit Science Club at The Star of Kings
Rockaoke lets you pretend you’re the singer in a band, while spaced themed disco Rockit Science Club will be down in the basement.
Price: £12
Finishes: 4am
Information/tickets
New Year’s Las Vegas Party at Drink, Shop & Do
**SOLD OUT** Drink, Shop and Do does very little wrong, so not surprisingly it’s Las Vegas themed event has sold out. Keep an eye on their Twitter feed for ticket returns.
Price: £20
Finishes: 3am
Information/tickets
New Years Eve 2012 at The Rocket
Jaegerbombs away! This is a student pub…
Price: Free
Finishes: 3am
Be At One Kings Cross New Years Eve at Be At One
A ticket-only affair at this new-ish cocktail bar.
Price: £10
Finishes: 3am
Information/tickets
The Secret Agents Party at The Driver
With a casino and new sound system, The Driver is going for the sophisticated end of the NYE party market.
Price: £35 - £50
Finishes: 4am
Information/tickets
New Year’s Eve Party with Tribes at Monto Water Rats
Expect a lively evening of loud guitars and DJ sets at the Water Rats.
Price: £10
Finishes: 3am
Information/tickets
Moondance at Scala
Moondance promises “10 hours of Old Skool, Jungle and Rave classics”
Price: £30
Finishes: 6am
Information/tickets
New Years Party with Miss Jason at Central Station
Drag cabaret act Miss Jason headlines NYE at King’s Cross premier gay club.
Price: £10
Finishes: 5am
Information/tickets
Friday, August 31, 2012
Recent arrivals - Summer 2012
So some of these places have been here for a while, but in case you missed them here’s what’s opened, closed or changed in King’s Cross in the last few months:
Shrimpy’s and KXFS
Improbably located in the shop of the old Goods Way BP filling station, Shrimpy’s brought a foody frenzy to King’s Cross with its soft shell crab burger. A few weeks later, KXFS arrived in the covered forecourt with a more down-to-earth booze and pizza offering along with an interesting events programme.
KXFS (Kings Cross Filling Station)
Granary Square and Caravan
With its child-friendly fountains and steps down to the canal, Granary Square is a space as large as Trafalgar Square that’s hosted a number of successful events over the summer, from Eurostar Traction to the King’s Cross Ice Cream Festival. Overlooking the square is Caravan, which opened in mid-August, a restaurant that’s industrial in both size and design with an interesting all-day menu and great coffee.
Brewhouse on York and Java Tree Café
Brewhouse on York is the first new wave independent coffee shop to arrive in King’s Cross and is a welcome addition to what’s always been a grotty section of York Way. Java Tree Café on Judd Street used to be called Bread & Butter then closed for a while. Foodwise it’s more of a traditional café, but smarter than some - the sort of place you could have a meeting or hang out making use of the free wifi.
Tune Hotel and Kings Cross Inn Hotel
Tune is a Malaysian budget hotel with ambitious expansion plans for the UK. They should give our two very tired Travelodges a run for their money.
Kings Cross Inn Hotel replaces the Northumberland Hotel which was so bad that I used to read its Tripadvisor reviews for entertainment. Not surprsingly, Kings Cross Inn Hotel is pricier than the Northumberland but on a par with many of the other hotels in and around Argyle Square.
One other bit of hotel news: the St Pancras Novotel has re-branded as Pullman London St Pancras, and its restaurant changed from Mirrors to Golden Arrow.
Station news
Patisserie Valerie was a late arrival in the new King’s Cross concourse, while Caffe Nero recently opened a kiosk up near platforms 9-11.
Caffe Nero was also one of the places that will soon close its branch in the old arrivals concourse (which is going to be pulled down over the coming months - hurrah) along with Burger King, Upper Crust and Delice de France although only the last of these doesn’t have another branch nearby.
and finally…
Previously a private club, Base Bar & Club is a cosy basement drinking den in Keystone Crescent with occasional live music.
Indian Lounge is a smart Indian restaurant and takeaway on the site of the old KFC.
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Friday, August 3, 2012
Kings Cross St Pancras Olympic travel update 3rd August
Paralympics updates:
If things change for the Paralympics we will publish them here.
Sunday 2nd September: some reports via Twitter of long waits for Javelin trains after the evening session in the Olympic stadium. I was at the event and used the Victoria Gate which has no crowds and is very near Bridge E if you are in that part of the stadium. I then took a number 8 bus into central London from this stop - very quick and stress-free journey. The Jubilee and Central Lines from Stratford don’t appear to have had problems either.
Saturday 1st September: there were minor queues for the Javelin trains this morning for the first Paralympics athletics session in the Olympic stadium, with waiting times of only a few minutes.
Friday 31 August: there were no queues for the Javelin trains this morning for the first Paralympics athletics session in the Olympic stadium.
Thursday 30 August: after some searching, we have found confirmation that print-at-home Paralympics tickets can be used on Javelin trains without a Games Travelcard.
Print at home tickets can also be used on Transport for London (TfL) services:
“TfL staff will allow spectators to travel on services operated by TfL as long as they have a print out ticket or confirmation they have purchased Paralympic tickets for that day…. Print out tickets and ticket confirmation will be valid on the following services: DLR, London buses, London Underground and London Overground. They will also allow you to travel on river services with a 1/3 discount. Print out tickets and ticket confirmation are not valid on the Emirates Airline.”
which comes from this page.
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Original post:
This is a follow-up to our Olympic travel page.
Today was the first day of athletics events in the Olympic Stadium, meaning that more than double the number of people would be heading to the Olympic Park this morning than previously. So how did the system cope?
- Bread & Goose entertain the crowds
I was mainly concentrating on the Javelin trains but didn’t see any signs of closures or crowds forming near any tube exits. On the roads there was heavy traffic on the Euston Road eastbound, probably from people being dropped off to catch the Javelin train.
Javelin trains
Here’s a quick overview:
- - Huge numbers of people arrived to use the service but overall the system coped
- - The Central Line was suspended for a while which would have sent even more people this way
- - The staff and volunteers did a fantastic job
- - 7.45 - 9am was the busiest period, and there were noticeable queues from around 7.30 - 9.15
After a slightly shaky start, staff did reasonably well to spread people evenly between the queuing pens, but the queue along Pancras Road was much longer than the others. I wasn’t timing the different queues but would guess that this was where some people reported that they were queuing for more than an hour.
But we all know the media likes doom and gloom and I saw far more tweets mentioning much shorter queue times including the BBC’s Tom Edwards: “About 30 mins I reckon to queue for javelin” and others like this one: “Queues long at St Pancras but well managed and thru in 15 mins for Javelin train”
How the Javelin queues work and how to avoid the longest ones
There are three main queuing areas which you can see in yellow this picture (click to see larger version).
The pens inside the station can be accessed directly from near the barriers to the First Capital Connect platforms, as well as being fed by pens in Midland Road.
At the busiest time, the queue in Pancras Road was the longest, while staff had to empty the pens inside the station near the First Capital Connect barriers more often to allow others coming from inside the station to use them. So you are likely to have a shorter waiting time if you go into the station and use these pens.
- Best avoided: Pancras Road
- Fast moving: inside St Pancras
Even more sneakily, you could try the alternative route to the Javelin platforms from the upper level of St Pancras near the Betjeman Arms pub. This can be reached from the steps in Pancras Road or by going to the upper level if you are inside the station.
- Sneaky: few people on upper level route
Finally, avoid being directed to the pens on Midland Road - you will be waiting behind people who go directly into the queues inside the station. These should really be removed to allow the taxi rank to go back to normal.
- Pointless: Midland Road pens hardly used
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Monday, July 30, 2012
Four cool things about Kings Cross and the Olympics
1. Invented here: the amazing Olympic cauldron
You could be forgiven for thinking that this rather gloomy gateway on Gray’s Inn Road is a tradesmen’s entrance for the King’s Cross Travelodge next door, but look closely at the buzzer and you will see that it’s the home of Heatherwick studio, creators of the stunning olympic cauldron.
2. Free lollies and free water
East Midlands Trains are giving away free strawberry lollies to arriving passengers at St Pancras, while the Salvation Army have people scattered about the area handing out free bottled water, although this poor chap had just tipped over his trolley.
3. Art and installations
Have some fun making shapes with Songboard, brought to you by students from nearby Central Saint Martins or head up the steps in front of St Pancras to look at Tripes by Alexander Calder, 1898–1976. (But why all the fencing?!)
4. Fun and games
The upright piano inside St Pancras proved so popular that they added another and have extended their time here. For the more energetic, there are two ping pong tables in the space between the stations.
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Kings Cross St Pancras Olympic travel update 30th July
This is a follow-up to our Olympic travel page.
The verdict: so far so good, mostly
Although the biggest test - the start of the athletics - is still to come, the two main fears of huge queues for the Javelin trains and of commuters waiting 30 minutes to get on the tube have proved unfounded. In fact people have been joking on Twitter about “travel chaos”:
There are, however, two things that need sorting:
Many of the signs at St Pancras for the Javelin trains point the wrong way
- This Javelin sign leads to the taxi rank on Midland Road
When these signs (which are mostly in the “Arcade” shopping area) first appeared, I gave them the benefit of the doubt and thought they were for a queuing system that had yet to be put in place. But the queuing system is elsewhere - on Pancras Road and inside near the escalators for the Javelin platforms.
- Queuing pens on Pancras Road, not where a lot of signs point to
A few signs are actually less wrong than they look because of an alternative route (which may prove quite useful if things do get busy) to the platforms accessed from near The Betjeman Arms’ indoor terrace on the station’s upper level.
- This sign looks wrong…
- …but leads to a sneaky back route to Javelin trains from upper level
However, many signs are still wrong, and others have had their arrows covered up, which is worse than useless.
- Signs with covered-up arrows are no help!
On the plus side, there are loads of extra staff around to help, so if you get confused the best advice is to ask.
But seeing as the games have still got nearly two weeks to run and then there are the paralympics, St Pancras and Southeastern please can you sort these signs out and stop confusing our visitors!
There are traffic jams being cause by road restrictions that shouldn’t be there
The roads have not fared as well as the railways, with jams on the Euston Road twice over the weekend and serious gridlock for a while on Monday morning. Congestion isn’t unusual in King’s Cross, but the frustrating thing is that the roads were clear in all directions outside our area, so the congestion shouldn’t have happened.
- GAOTG map for 30th July showing no restrictions in King’s Cross
The problem seems to have been caused by two mistakes:
1. Signs incorrectly designating Euston Road bus lanes as Games Lanes.
This is only meant to happen between Euston and King’s Cross on 7 days during the games (due to road events), but signs have been displayed permanently since Friday, although someone armed with spraypaint has noticed the problem and taken matters into their own hands:
- Spray-painted Olympic rings
Despite the inclusion of the word “taxis” on the sign, the situation has understandably confused black cabs, many of whom I saw sitting in traffic next to empty lanes this morning.
- Cabbies confused about which lanes they’re allowed to use
2. No left-turn signs from Euston Road into Upper Woburn Place.
Again this restriction has been in place all the time but on the GAOTG website is only shown on road event days.
- No left turn from Euston Road (westbound) into Upper Woburn Place
It is from this junction that westbound traffic has been backing up to King’s Cross and causing the jams.
I have tweeted @GAOTG twice about these issues and not had a reply. King’s Cross traffic needs to run as smoothly as possible, and not have extra and unnecessary restrictions applied when traffic elsewhere is running smoothly.
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