Above the Newman Arms pub in Rathbone Street there is a bricked up window with a picture of a young woman.
In the painting she can be seen in a nightdress and little cap which partly covers her long red hair. She peers down onto the street below with her bare arms resting against the horizontal sash of the half open window.
Like many buildings in Fitzrovia it was once home to a brothel and this painted lady of the night is a depiction of those former times.
But now landowner Shaftesbury wants to reinstate the original window which means this working girl will drift into Fitzrovia’s past along with so much else.
Planning application: 17/04486/FULL | Reinstatement of the central window on the front elevation at third floor level. | 23 Rathbone Street London W1T 1NG.