Olympics rings flag flies over Tower Bridge. The logo of five rings, linked to show unity between athletes on five continents, was designed in 1912 by the founder of the International Olympic Committee, Pierre de Coubertin.
By JILL LAWLESS, Associated Press
LONDON (AP) — It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.
The Olympics have turned London into a tale of two cities, with shops, hotels, theaters and restaurants in the center suffering a tourist drought while crowds throng to the games a few miles to the east.
The huge Westfield Stratford City shopping center, smack beside the Olympic Park, is bustling with people visiting the games or simply catching some of the Olympic buzz while they shop. Cheerful London volunteers in pink and purple have been using megaphones to help marshal the crowds at Europe's largest mall.
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But across town at the West End — London's main shopping and entertainment district — it's eerily quiet. There's plenty of space at restaurant patio tables, no need to elbow others out of the way on the sidewalks, and unusually attentive staff in the stores.
"It's a fiasco," said Peter Forrest, a street performer in Covent Garden, an area of shops, pubs and restaurants around a piazza that's normally teeming with tourists.
Forrest, painting whiskers to his face for his role as Doggie Man, said it's been "the worst two weeks ever for business."
"It's because of Boris," he added grumpily. "Boris told everybody not to come."
Many businesses blame London Mayor Boris Johnson, along with London transit bosses and games organizers, for scaring people away from central London.
Anticipating a huge strain on the city's transit network from a predicted extra million travelers a day, they have been warning Londoners for months to plan ahead, seek alternative routes or work from home.
The message has gotten through — but too well, tourism chiefs say.
Tom Jenkins, chief executive of the European Tour Operators Association, said London normally sees 300,000 foreign visitors and 800,000 domestic ones a day in August.
"These people have been told implicitly that they should stay away, and they have done so," he said.
In Leicester Square — usually so chock-a-block with tourists that locals give it a wide berth — a few families sat enjoying urban picnics on Wednesday, while sales people tried to drum up business for theater ticket booths from a trickle of passers-by. Olympic volunteers, deployed to give directions, did not find themselves in huge demand.
One American college student from Topeka, Kansas, who was traveling around Europe for the summer, was surprised at London's tame atmosphere.
"We thought it would be more crazy, with people everywhere, clubs packed and a frenetic sort of vibe like other cities we've been to in Europe," Jenny Logan as she walked near the Houses of Parliament. "But so far, the night life has been pretty tame and the little restaurants we wanted to explore in the cobblestone alleys have been deserted. What's going on?"
The gloom is repeated across London's major tourist attractions. The London Zoo said it had 40 percent fewer visitors last week than during the same period a year earlier. The Natural History Museum said its galleries were unusually quiet.
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Theater producer Nica Burns told the Evening Standard newspaper that her venues were "bleeding."
"For my six theaters, last week was the worst this year," she said. "I think the Olympics are great — but I feel like I've been the bulls-eye for the archery competition."
And there's even evidence people are postponing their nuptials until after the games. Christopher Woodward, director of London's Garden Museum, said there had been a steep drop in the number of wedding receptions being booked during the Olympic and Paralympic games. That period runs from July 27 to Sept. 9.
"No one is getting married in London in August," he said.
The ghost town effect is all the more galling to businesses because the predicted transit chaos has not materialized.
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