Bar Italia & Baird's Blue Plaque

Located at 22 Frith Street in London, the building housing Bar Italia is where Scottish engineer John Logie Baird gave the world's first public demonstration of television on January 26, 1926. Baird constructed his prototype in the attic using tea chests, darning needles, and bicycle lenses. In 1949, Lou and Caterina Polledri opened Bar Italia on the ground floor as a hub for London's Italian community.

London · from the walk “Canvas & Cobblestones” · audio ~4 min · Generated

22 Frith Street, London W1D 4RF

Where in London did John Logie Baird give the first demonstration of television?

Look up at the building in front of you... twenty-two Frith Street. You see a glowing neon sign for Bar Italia, one of Soho's most beloved cafés. But now glance a little higher. There, above the door, is a blue plaque that marks one of the most extraordinary moments in the history of art... and of Seeing itself.......... It was in this very building that the engineer John Logie Baird gave the world's first demonstration of a working television in January nineteen twenty-six. And the story of how it happened is wonderfully eccentric.......... Baird used two cramped attic rooms upstairs as his laboratory from November nineteen twenty-four. He was a Scottish inventor... broke, sickly, and utterly obsessed with a dream most people thought was madness. He built what became the world's first working television set using items that included an old hatbox, a pair of scissors, some darning needles, bicycle light lenses, a used tea chest, and sealing wax.......... Now here's the detail that truly captures the imagination. His early system couldn't televise human faces — they lacked contrast — and the incandescent lights were so blisteringly hot that no person could sit under them. So Baird used a ventriloquist's dummy instead. Its name was Stooky Bill — "stooky" being Scottish slang for plaster. Eventually, the heat singed Bill's hair and cracked the paint on his face. The First face ever seen on television... was a melting puppet.......... Then came the breakthrough. On the second of October, nineteen twenty-five, Baird successfully transmitted the first television picture with a greyscale image — Stooky Bill's head — and then rushed downstairs to fetch an office worker, twenty-year-old William Edward Taynton, to see what a human face would look like. But here's the wonderful twist — the boy, scared by the intense white light, backed away from the transmitter! Baird had to bribe him with half a crown to sit still. Taynton became the First person ever televised in full tonal range.......... Three months later, on the twenty-sixth of January nineteen twenty-six... the night that changed everything. About forty members of the Royal Institution — all distinguished scientists in full evening dress — crammed into Baird's threadbare laboratory right here at Frith Street. The crush was so great they had to be divided into groups of six, with the others standing waiting on the stairs.......... And today? This nondescript building is better known as the home of iconic Bar Italia, opened in nineteen forty-nine by Lou and Caterina Polledri. They saw an opportunity for a café in Soho that could serve great coffee And act as a social center for London's Italian community. Over the decades, celebrities from David Bowie to Mick Jagger to Al Pacino have passed through its doors.......... So take a moment with this thought. Upstairs, a man with darning needles and a melting puppet gave humanity the power to see across distances. Downstairs, three generations of one family have been pouring espresso since nineteen forty-nine. Art, invention, coffee, and Soho — all layered into a single address on Frith Street.

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