The street gained mass attention and even became a landmark after The Beatles named their 1969 album ‘Abbey Road’, with the album cover featuring the four members crossing the road.
Now, every day, dozens of eager and excited tourists head to the location to recreate the iconic album cover.
However, it seems some of those tourists expect a bit more than just a road when they make the trip to St John’s Wood and often end up disappointed.
Many of those tourists have taken to the online review site Tripadvisor to share their upset.
One visitor titled their review “disappointed doesn’t cover it…” explaining: “On reflection, I think I may have been expecting too much. My disappointment in not finding street sellers, either side of the road, selling cheap t-shirts and merchandise was a surprise.”
They added: “It’s just a zebra crossing and you’d save yourself some money by just standing on any of the millions in the UK and just photoshopping the background in.”
Another upset Beatles fan shared that there’s ‘nothing to see’: "I am a massive Beatles fan, but there really is nothing to see here.
“It’s just an ordinary zebra crossing. It’s busy - crowded with fellow tourists trying to work out if they are even at the right place, and with annoyed drivers trying to drive down a busy main road.”
Did it used to have some cool shop or something in the 60’s or did they really just walk across a random street?
Wikipedia could answer this but I crave human interaction.
Nope, just the zebra crossing that was closest to their recording studio.
Hm. I guess they can be satisfied with knowing they’re standing in the same spot as one of the beatles. Like using the same toilet as King Louis XVI.
But they’re not. They moved the zebra crossing up the street in the 1970s.
They originally planned something bigger but then decided to just walk across the road outside the music studio.
They originally intended to photograph in Penny Lane, but on the day they’d hired the photographer and rented the equipment, the bus drivers in Liverpool were on strike. They didn’t want to pay the photographer for a second outing, not because of cost but because Lennon realized the photographer was a family friend who he had slighted in the past - this is also why he look socially awkward on the album art. Instead, they had a backup plan to walk across Abbey Road and then find a rotoscoper to give it a “cartoonish” feeling, but time pressures and a miscommunication with the label about which picture to use lead to the Abbey Road we all know today.
Note: I have never listened to a Beatles song outside of a commercial and have so little knowledge about the subject that I googled to see if Penny Lane is a location or a person
Despite Penny Lane being 200 miles away from Abbey Road, the photographer being Scottish and having just been introduced to the band by Yoko Ono, and did later work for Lennon in subsequent years.