National Trust audio tour of Soho London's darker side

The UK's National Trust has released a free smartphone audio tour of London's Soho that apparently focuses on the neighborhood's bohemian, vice, and criminal roots that sprouted with the emergence of the jazz scene in the late 1940s. It's part of the National Trust's efforts to seem, er, hip. From The Telegraph (CC-licensed photo by -AX-):

Listeners, who will be restricted to those aged over 17, will be able to listen to drunken tales from the Groucho Club while another details how gangster “Mad” Frankie Fraser operated his protection rackets.
Other more colorful stories include those of Francis Bacon, the homosexual artist, being whipped and a former vice-squad officer pointing out a phone box that was a front for a crack den.
Ivo Dawnay, the London director of the Trust who is married to Rachel Johnson, the sister of mayor of London Boris Johnson, defended the new initiative.
“British rock-and-roll, feminism and gay liberation were all born in Soho, and this new technology allows us to deliver those stories in a vivid way,” he said.

"National Trust launches new tourist guide to Soho's red light district" (The Telegraph)

Soho Stories app (National Trust)

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

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tw1515tw

Pretty sure The National Trust is not part of the government.
- Paul Bowen
  
  The header says government-sponsored which you can be without being part of government. But as it happens the NT isn’t either.
  - David Pescovitz
    
    Thanks, fixed!
- Ashley Yakeley
  
  And if you want to be really pedantic, it’s not the UK’s National Trust. It’s England, Wales & Northern Ireland’s National Trust.
  - David Pescovitz
    
    Their site says “We’re a UK conservation charity”
    - Mark Brown
      
      There’s (for mostly technical reasons) a separate charity in Scotland called the National Trust for Scotland, but especially in a global context it is reasonable for the main charity to describe themselves as being a UK charity (they are after all a charity in the UK), even though they don’t cover the whole of the UK.
    - Antinous / Moderator
      
      Their site says “We’re a UK conservation charity”
      
      Since Scotland’s on the cusp of voting for independence, they’re not doing a very good job of conserving the UK.
Wreckrob8

But no partnership with any local establishment to provide over-priced refreshments at the end of the tour? I could suggest a few places.
sgtdoom

If one really wants to see a dark side of London, study the takeover of the monarchy (a buyout) back in the 1700s by the City of London Corporation with their “perpetually renewable” deal (called a SILO – - – Sale In, Lease Out — a sweet scam and really interesting to those curious about such matters.)
liquidstar

I was fully expecting a picture of the house of “lords”.
Keith Tyler

All innovations in culture come from society’s seedy underbellies. This is true as true of Soho as it is of 4chan.
dreddpiratebob

I think this is a cracking idea.

however i’m up at home in the lake district and we have just been discussing what the national trust are up to up here. They really are bloody terrible. Utterly destroying what they profess to protect.

probably not the place to rant, so i’ll hush but hells bells i have my dander up.
http://twitter.com/_OM_ _OM_

…Yeah, but the *real* question is whether or not they point out the legendary doorway where Pete Townsend collapsed, and was awakened by a policeman who knew who Pete was, and told him he could go home and sleep it off that night, provided he could get up and walk away.
Cynical

“British rock-and-roll, feminism and gay liberation were all born in Soho, so we’re going to turn it into fucking Disneyland and make sure none of that degenerate counter-cultural stuff happens again.”

Actually, I’m kind of torn about this; on the one hand it’s nice to educate people, but on the other the last thing Soho needs is more spacially-oblivious tourists wandering around listening to headphones. Isn’t that what Oxford Street’s for?