Buy a tube station

A disused tube station is up for sale in London for the bargain price of £180,000 ($290,000). Formerly Shoreditch Underground Station, the 1,600 sq. ft. single-level property would make an unusual home for someone willing to put in some elbow grease—and willing to tolerate living immediately next to train tracks. Rooms include a ticketing office, lobby, plant area, and a toilet. Andrews & Robertson [via BLDGBLG]

⟿ Follow Rob Beschizza on Twitter.

MORE: Down Home

More at Boing Boing

The technology that links taxonomy and Star Trek

Hackers prepare for first "national holiday" in their honor

hungryjoe

In for one.
squidfood

Thus making the long-discussed “residential gambit” of Mornington Crescent a reality. It could reinvigorate MC fans everywhere, though by using Shoreditch, a block with a well-timed Liverpool Street could make it unplayable. Pity it wasn’t Aldwych!
- RadioSilence
  
  of course, rule 27c says you can only use the residential gambit once, so if i nip to Fulham Broadway you’ll be forced to cross over to Dagenham East, if i’m not mistaken.
Anonymous

to would make a bad ass club!!! right on the tracks! maybe a rain parked with graffiti graffix nearby??
Anonymous

It sure would make giving directions to your house easy, since it’s marked on every map in London.
TheMadLibrarian

With property of all flavors in London being so expensive, I’m surprised no one has immediately snapped it up, if only for an investment. I concur with Zac, an artist workspace cum gallery cum living quarters would be a logical repurposing. You wouldn’t even need to scrub off the graffiti.
Zirze

I DO SO WANT THAT.

Seriously. I don’t even care about all the rats, or the fact that I’m really bad at patching things up and that I probably couldn’t afford this in a million years. I WANT.
Anonymous

When I grow rich, say the bells….
Cynical

Hehe to the commenter above who said it would make a good club; I was actually taken to a squat party there a few years back. You’re absolutely correct in that it makes a great venue- there’s loads of space, it’s split level, the walls are thick and it’s a detached, isolated building so the chances of annoying the neighbours are pretty slim…
IWood

Is the line still running? If so, I’d only buy it if I could hang out a signal that would get the train to stop and pick me up or drop me off.

But only me. Everyone else would have to get on somewhere else or stay on the train.

Because I’m a selfish bastard.
- MrWeeble
  
  “Is the line still running?”
  
  No, the line got diverted to make it more useful and this station, being the terminus, was not in the right place so it got replaced by a new station on the new line just down the road. It is, however, still next to the Great Eastern Mainline (to which the line used to be linked many, many moons ago)
Nadreck

Perfect headquarters for the budding Criminal Mastermind. Just like the headquarters of the Japanese Secret Service in the You Only Live Twice novel.
asuffield

Given that it’s in North London, with great transport links to Islington? A property developer will buy it up as soon as they can get financing put together. They’ll smash it flat and build a block of flats on it. Profits will be in the millions.
Glenn Fleishman

My father owned a train station when I was growing up. (I love being able to say that.) The Centerville station in Fremont, Calif., was taken out of service and then used as a succession of retail stores. He ran a furniture store out of it, with some goods being delivered by train!

Later, it became a train station again. It’s part of the ACE and Capitol Corridor lines.
semiotix

I’m guessing most of the taggers would give up once people started moving in and fixing things up, either because it’s not nice to tag someone’s actual house, or because it’s not an easy, abandoned target anymore.

Most.
jungletek

So that’s why the Shoreditch and Hackney areas are so under-served by the tube system.

Fuck knows it was always a pain to have to go ‘all the way down’ to Old Street when I was living next to Shoreditch park. Or maybe I’m just a lazy bastard.
Purplecat

More pictures at:

http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/Shoreditch_station.html
- Donald Petersen
  
  Wow, Purplecat. I just spent half an hour drooling over those pictures.
  
  I’ve half a mind to unload my equity in Pasadena and move the wife and kids to Shoreditch. No idea what I’d do for a living, but I could live in that old dump quite contentedly!
Anonymous

club or bar would be a better bet.
SonOfSamSeaborn

DO WANT
Lobster

Good for people willing to tolerate living immediately next to the tracks, and in an area with THAT much graffiti.
- Anonymous
  
  Graffiti is amazing, complex ART…but the neighboring trains I can do without.
- Anonymous
  
  I knew there would be SOME way to concern-troll this, nice work. :)
  
  The proverbial LOL at the idea that someone would be discouraged from living RIGHT ON BRICK LANE by grafitti…
P1rat3

Oh hell yes. Brick Lane on your doorstep!

I prefer this photo: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Shoreditch_tube_station_2008.jpg/800px-Shoreditch_tube_station_2008.jpg
Phikus

You could become the new Station Agent.
TooGoodToCheck

Perhaps I’ve misjudged the situation in London, never having been there, but don’t most subway stations have rather a lot of rats?
- Anonymous
  
  This one is not actually underground so maybe not so bad rat-wise.
- Matt J
  
  It’s a surface station, so I don’t see why it would have more rats than any other building.
Zac

I love repurposed spaces like this. All though admittedly, the train track issue does limit its utility. Maybe some sort of industrial-style art gallery?
Anonymous

It’s Shoreditch. A collective of New Media professionals, DJs, Visual artists and urban explorers are assembling a bid as we speak.
RedShirt77

Isn’t it called a lew or lou or some such thing?
- Anonymous
  
  The word you are looking for is “loo.”
Anonymous

Following on from this auction, Londonist recently had a list of other repurposed Tube stations:
http://londonist.com/2011/02/what-shall-we-do-with-the-old-tube-station.php