Vine Street, London

The street is approximately long and is a dead end, running east and parallel to Piccadilly near Piccadilly Circus. It consists mainly of the rear facades of buildings facing onto other streets. It connects to Swallow Street at its western end and an alleyway, Piccadilly Place halfway along. At the eastern end, the Man in the Moon Passage provides foot access to Regent Street. The nearest tube station is Piccadilly Circus. ==History==

The street is named after The Vine, an 18th-century public house, which in turn may have been named after a vineyard that existed at this location in Roman times. It was documented on ratebooks as Little Swallow Street in 1675. ==Events and incidents==

The Dutch artist Peter Scheemakers moved into a house on the western edge of Vine Street around 1741. He stayed there until 1769, when he returned to Antwerp. On 2 September 1791, composer Frantisek Kotzwara died at prostitute Susannah Hill's house at No. 5 Vine Street from erotic asphyxiation following a sexual act that involved tying his neck to a doorknob. Hill was charged with Kotzwara's murder but later acquitted. The street and police station are mentioned in the Pogues' song "The Old Main Drag" on their 1985 album Rum Sodomy & the Lash. It refers to the station and street's unpopularity with some of London owing to their distrust of the police force. Because of its relatively hidden location and proximity to Piccadilly Circus, the street suffers from crime, which has led to Westminster City Council gating off the Man in the Moon Passage so service vehicles can access connecting buildings safely. The street features as a property with a purchase price of £200 on the British Monopoly board. It is one of a group of three, coded orange, with connections to law, and is named after the police station. The other two orange properties, Bow Street and Marlborough Street, which are both valued at £180, are named after the Bow Street Runners and Marlborough Street Magistrates Court respectively. Since the Man in the Moon is now closed, students on a Monopoly board pub crawl drink in one of the nearby pubs, such as those on Swallow Street, instead. ==References==