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Tube: Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus. If Soho has a main drag, it has to be Old Compton Street , which runs parallel with Shaftesbury Avenue. The corner shops, peep shows, boutiques and trendy cafes here are typical of the area and a good barometer of the latest Soho fads. Soho was a permanent fixture on the gay scene for much of the twentieth century, but the approach is much more upfront nowadays, with gay bars, clubs and cafes jostling for position on Old Compton Street, and round the corner in Wardour Street. And it doesn't stop there: there's now a gay travel agency, a gay financial adviser and a gay taxi service. The streets off Old Compton Street are lined with Soho institutions past and present. One of the best known is London's longest-running jazz club, Ronnie Scott's ( www.ronniescotts.co.uk), on Frith Street , founded in 1958 and still capable of pulling in the big names. Opposite is the Bar Italia, an Italian cafe with a big screen for satellite TV transmissions of Italian football games, and late-night hours popular with Soho's clubbers. It was in this building, appropriately enough for such a media-saturated area, that John Logie Baird made the world's first public television-transmission in 1926. If you're finding it difficult to imagine Soho ever having been an aristocratic haunt, pay a visit to the House of St Barnabas-in-Soho (Wed 2.30-4.30pm, Thurs 11am-12.30pm; donation), a Georgian mansion at the top of Greek Street. Built in the 1740s, the house retains some exquisite Rococo plasterwork on the main staircase and in the Council Chamber, which has a lovely view onto Soho Square. Since 1861 the building has been a Christian charity house for the destitute, so the rest of the interior is much altered and closed off.
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