Lehrter Straße

Oxford Street, a main shopping street in Central London, has been decorated with festive lights for many Christmases since 1959. They have been a regular and popular feature of Christmas in London.The lights were originally installed in response to nearby Regent Street, which had featured Christmas lights since 1954. The lights were paid for by shop owners and the local council, and were installed in order to give a sense of occasion to shoppers that could not be found anywhere else. The tradition fell out of favour by the early 1970s because of the economic climate, and no lights were featured for some years. It returned in the 1980s following campaigning from local traders.Since 2010, management of the lights has been undertaken by Field and Lawn, a marquee hire company who also install the Regent Street lights. Around 750,000 bulbs are used annually. Current practice involves a celebrity turning the lights on in mid- to late-November, and the lights remain until 6 January (Twelfth Night). The position of turning the lights on can be considered an aspiration, and an indication that a particular celebrity is very popular. The festivities were postponed in 1963 because of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. In 2015, the lights were switched on earlier, on Sunday 1 November, resulting in an unusual closure of the street to all traffic. In 2018, there wasn't a celebrity guest at the light switch on and instead several performers played at various stores along the street.The following celebrities have turned on the lights since 1981:

Oxford Street is a major road in the City of Westminster in the West End of London, running from Tottenham Court Road to Marble Arch via Oxford Circus. It is Europe's busiest shopping street, with around half a million daily visitors, and as of 2012 had approximately 300 shops. It is designated as part of the A40, a major road between London and Fishguard, though it is not signed as such, and traffic is regularly restricted to buses and taxis. The road was originally part of the Via Trinobantina, a Roman road between Essex and Hampshire via London. It was known as Tyburn Road through the Middle Ages when it was notorious for public hangings of prisoners at Tyburn Gallows. It became known as Oxford Road and then Oxford Street in the 18th century, and began to change from residential to commercial and retail use by the late 19th century, attracting street traders, confidence tricksters and prostitution. The first department stores in the UK opened in the early 20th century, including Selfridges, John Lewis & Partners and HMV. Unlike nearby shopping streets such as Bond Street, it has retained an element of downmarket trading alongside more prestigious retail stores. The street suffered heavy bombing during World War II, and several longstanding stores including John Lewis & Partners were completely destroyed and rebuilt from scratch. Despite competition from other shopping centres such as Westfield Stratford City and the Brent Cross Shopping Centre, Oxford Street remains in high demand as a retail location, with several chains having their flagship stores on the street, and has a number of listed buildings. The annual switching on of Christmas lights by a celebrity has been a popular event since 1959. As a popular retail area and main thoroughfare for London buses and taxis, Oxford Street has suffered from traffic congestion, pedestrian congestion, a poor safety record and pollution. Various traffic management schemes have been implemented by Transport for London (TfL), including a ban on private vehicles during daytime hours on weekdays and Saturdays, and improved pedestrian crossings.

The London General Mourning Warehouse was a mourning warehouse on Regent Street. It was established by William Chickall Jay in 1841 and so it was commonly known as Jay's. It sold all types of goods needed for funerals and the elaborate mourning of the Victorian era.

Peter Robinson was a chain of department stores with its flagship store being situated at Oxford Circus, London. Founded in 1833 as a drapery, Robinson bought up nearby shops on Oxford Street to create a department store. The Topshop chain debuted in 1964 as a section in a Peter Robinson branch. The shop building in Oxford Circus was completed in 1912 and is Grade II listed.

Oxford Circus is a London Underground station serving Oxford Circus at the junction of Regent Street and Oxford Street, with entrances on all four corners of the intersection. The station is an interchange between the Bakerloo, Central and Victoria lines. As of 2021, it was the fourth-busiest station on the London Underground. On the Central line it is between Bond Street and Tottenham Court Road, on the Bakerloo line it is between Regent's Park and Piccadilly Circus, and on the Victoria line it is between Green Park and Warren Street. The station is in Travelcard Zone 1. The Central line station opened on 30 July 1900, and the Bakerloo line station on 10 March 1906. Both are Grade II listed. The station was rebuilt in 1912 to relieve congestion. Further congestion led to another reconstruction in 1923. Numerous improvements were made as part of the New Works Programme and as a flood protection measure. To accommodate additional passengers on the Victoria line, a new ticket hall was built. The Victoria line platforms opened on 7 March 1969, including cross-platform interchange with the Bakerloo line.

The Oxford Circus fire occurred on Friday 23 November 1984 at 9.50pm at Oxford Circus station on the London Underground. Oxford Circus station is in the heart of London's shopping district and is served by three deep-level tube lines: the Bakerloo line, Central line and Victoria line. The three lines are linked by a complex network of tunnels and cross-passages which all converge to a common booking hall situated beneath the junction of Oxford Street and Regent Street. The fire started in a materials store at the south end of the northbound Victoria line platform, which was being used by contractors working on the modernisation of the station. It gutted the northbound Victoria line platform tunnel and the passages leading off it. The adjacent northbound Bakerloo line platform suffered smoke damage, as did the escalator tunnel and the booking hall. Other areas of the station were undamaged. The most likely cause of the fire was a smoker discarding smoking materials through a ventilation grille into the materials store, which ignited rags or paint thinner.

The Green Man and Still was a tavern in Oxford Street, London. It was much favoured during the 18th and 19th centuries by cricketers playing at the nearby Thomas Lord's grounds, including as William Beldham, Tom Walker and David Harris, and was also patronised by the leading bookmakers of the day.The tavern was originally situated at 335 Oxford Street, between Argyll Street and Queen Street (which no longer exists) and was also a coaching inn (a 1792 map shows it at the entrance to a stagecoach yard), the start point/terminus of several stage coach routes out of London. By 1852 it was also a parcel office for the London & North-Western Railway and in 1864 the established coaching firm of Chaplin & Horne took over the office, which had most likely stopped being a tavern by this date. In 1882, this office apparently closed and moved to 241 Oxford Street: however, as the current 241 premises (following the renumbering of Oxford Street during the late 19th century redevelopment) are barely 100 feet further west down the street, it couldn't have been too arduous a move. The building at 241 was purchased in 1898 by the Baker St & Waterloo Railway and demolished in February 1901, by which time the office had relocated to 151 Oxford Street (between Berwick Street and Poland Street), retaining the 'Green Man & Still' name as late as the early 1920s.

The Argyll Arms is a Grade II* listed public house at 18 Argyll Street, Soho, London, W1.It is on the Campaign for Real Ale's National Inventory of Historic Pub Interiors.It was built in 1868, and altered in about 1895 by Robert Sawyer.

The London Organ School and College of Music was a music school established in 1865 by Frederick Scotson Clark. It later merged with other schools to become the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art.

Hanover Chapel was a church in Regent Street, London. It was built in 1825, and was demolished in 1896.

John Prince's Street, also Princes Street, is a street in Marylebone in the City of Westminster in central London that runs from Margaret Street in the north to Oxford Street in the south. It is joined on its eastern side by Great Castle Street.

The Oxford Circus panic, or Oxford Street panic, was a human stampede in Oxford Circus tube station and surrounding streets in London, United Kingdom, around 16:38 GMT on Friday 24 November 2017 in which 16 people were injured.The incident began with false reports of gunshots after a fight between two people on the Central line platform at Oxford Circus station. Since the panic coincided with Black Friday sales and the Christmas shopping season, the streets of Oxford Street and Regent Street were full of shoppers. Many shops barricaded their doors, and the police issued warnings for people in Oxford Street to seek shelter immediately. In the resulting panic, several people were injured by falls and trampling, nine seriously enough to require hospital treatment. By 18:05 GMT, the police had declared that there had been no gunshots or terrorism, which ended the incident.