Electric Avenue

Electric Avenue is a street in Brixton, London. Built in the 1880s, it was the first market street to be lit by electric lights. Today, the street contains several butchers and fish mongers and hosts a part of Brixton Market, which specializes in selling a mix of African, Caribbean, South American and Asian products. It is located just around the corner from Brixton Underground station (1972). The elegant Victorian canopies over the pavements survived until the 1980s.

This article is about Electric Avenue, Brixton, London. For other uses, see Electric Avenue (disambiguation).

Electric Avenue in 1895
Brixton Market in Electric Avenue

History

The road gave its name to Eddy Grant's 1983 single "Electric Avenue", which reached #2 on both the UK and U.S. singles charts. The song was inspired by the 1981 Brixton riot.

On 17 April 1999 the neo-Nazi bomber David Copeland planted a nail bomb outside a supermarket in Brixton Road with the intention of igniting a race war across Britain.[1] A market trader became suspicious and moved the device to a less crowded area of Electric Avenue. Thirty-nine people were injured in its explosion.

Notes
  1. "Profile: Copeland the killer". BBC News. 30 June 2000. Retrieved 16 April 2011.

References


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