The British state-owned property company honored David Bowie in London on Tuesday March 27, 2012 with a plaque to commemorate his 1972 album, “The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars.”
The front cover of The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars
The plaque was installed at 23 Heddon Street, where the cover photo for the album was taken.
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Ziggy Stardust Plaque In Heddon Street, London
Hardcore Bowie fan Gary Kemp of Spandau Ballet unveiled the plaque and gave an eloquent speech at the ceremony, which was attended by Weird and Gilly, I mean Trevor Bolder and Woody Woodmandsey. (R.I.P. Mick Ronson 1946 – 1993.)
Debbie Harry wearing a Mick Ronson T-Shirt
Mick Ronson ‘Slaughter On 10th Avenue’
Gary Kemp
David Bowie was absent, of course. Kemp commented that “David is nurturing his well-earned enigma in New York.”
He also said in the speech, “Ziggy came out of a much darker impoverished London – it offered a great means of escape for an adolescent generation that was still in the shadow of the Second World War.”
If you’d like to take a pilgrimage to the site, Heddon is a small street leading to Regent Street.
You won’t see any cars as on the Ziggy cover, because – bearing out Kemp’s comments – Heddon has been re-developed from a grimy, narrow road into a pedestrian-only street of bars and restaurants.
For any of my readers from the United Kingdom, the plaque is a black plaque installed by Crown Estates. It is not one of the blue plaques from English Heritage used for historical significance.
Many newspapers have made an error by identifying it as a blue plaque, but who reads newspapers? You know that blogs are where you find real answers.
David Bowie Starman
The street is so changed now, it is almost unrecognisable, sad but true…
It is so gentrified now, more wine bar than pub, but I was also just thinking, maybe it always was better in our minds. That photographer really captured a mood.