There are many cultural centers in the West End, Kensington, and boroughs outside the City, but none of them are 10 or 15 minutes from the Barbican center (hence your not being able to name a single one).
There is a theatre at Tottenham Court Road. It is over 30 minutes away from the Barbican centre by foot (but about 10 minutes by Elizabeth line).
The nearest major art gallery to TCR is not in Soho, but 15-20 minutes from Tottenham Court Road. There are two other major galleries closer to the Barbican than anywhere near Soho. Both are at least 25 minutes by foot and at least 25 minutes by tube.
There isn't an auditorium in Soho, unless you can name one? St-Martin-in-the-fields is no closer than the National portrait gallery, 20 min by foot or 15 by bus from TCR. Easily 25-30 minutes from the Barbican centre by any means of transport.
Likewise there are several repertory cinemas in Soho but none of them are 0 minutes from Tottenham Court Road.
Your claim of 15 minutes by foot was completely laughable. My claim of around 30 minutes in each case was accurate.
The problem isn’t naming them, the problem is you shifting goal posts by saying “major”. Which could just as easily exclude the amenities at the Barbican too, given “major” is an entirely subjective term.
Also I never claimed 15 minutes by foot. And given how good public transport is in London, it’s a silly argument for you to make that we can only talk about out walking somewhere.
Plus even if we were just talking about walking, as myself and others have pointed out to you, half an hour isn’t far to walk in central London. Londoners do it all the time.
There really isn’t any need for you to be taking such an aggressive tone here.
Name any art gallery which you think is a major art gallery, ie of comparable or greater size and prestige to the Barbican art gallery and is 15 minutes from the Barbican center, including by public transport?
You can't, because there isn't one.
You made an incorrect statement, and now you're defending it, but without providing any example at all of what you are claiming exists. So it's a little bit cheeky to claim that I am shifting the goal posts.
But if you really care about art then you aren’t going to limit yourself to “major” art galleries (again, speaking from experience here).
This whole argument is absurd. I dont understand why you find it so controversial to claim that a flat in central London would be near pretty much anything you could want. Business district or not, I stand by my statement. If it weren’t true then people wouldn’t pay the premium to live in central London.
Tate Modern (yes, it is definitely a major art gallery) is around half an hour from the Barbican center by foot, and around half an hour from the Barbican center by public transport.
Read my comment again:
> It's the business district. If not for the Barbican, the nearest serious art gallery, repertory cinema, music auditorium, are all around half an hour away.
Your single 'counter-example' is a serious art gallery, which is around half an hour away...
Your strident tone isn't doing your position any favours.
You're a lot closer to everything in the Barbican than you are in Croydon or Enfield or Acton or Stratford.
London is big. The City is close enough to the centre that it is central, compared to most of London.
(Personally I think the Barbican is ugly, and I didn't like moving around in it, with long walkways forcing unnatural navigation. It only works, in so far as it works, due to a degree of elite mindshare capture keeping it owned and occupied by the wealthy. Put the same idea in Stratford and come back to somewhere far less pleasant in 20 years.)
But honestly, you’re the first Londoner I’ve spoken to who considers 30 minutes by foot a long way away. Even by London standards, that’s close. For suburban dwellers, 30 minutes by foot wouldn’t even get them close to their nearest art gallery (and I don’t even mean “major” galleries either).
And your insistence on limiting things by “major” instances is odd. London has a strong culture of smaller independent amenities. Many of which are a lot closer than Soho and Southbank.
This is honestly the first time I’ve ever heard anyone complain about a zone one apartment being a long way from stuff.
It’s also a route I’ve done often, hence how I know.
And if you cannot find an art gallery, auditorium nor cinema in Soho then you’re doing something very wrong.