Abbey Road Crossing a Historic Site

It's not just any pedestrian crossing. It is the pedestrian crossing. You know the one. You've seen it so often you can describe in your sleep in what order they're walking, who's wearing what, and who's out of step.

Yes, we're talking about the cover of Abbey Road. That particular pedestrian crossing is now under national protection, thanks to action by the U.K. government. It's a Grade II listed site, to be precise; and that means that anybody wanting to do anything to it needs to make a proposal that gets over the considerably high bar set by the local government's measures of the site's historic significance. Obviously, that bar will be particularly high.

Probably no one would argue if a proposal to upgrade the pavement were approved, since that meets another of the local government's measures (condition of the area), as well as the test of common sense.

And, if a developer wanted to come in and eradicate the white stripes in favor of a stop-free road, that would not pass the third of the local government's measures, that of function.

Suffice it to say that you'd have to work incredibly hard to convince the local government to change anything about that pedestrian crossing.

This is a good thing, right? I mean, we want to preserve in reality as well as in our minds (and repeated glimpses of the album cover) exactly what that street looked like. We want to remember the 28IF license plate. We want to see just how sunny it was that day, when the Beatles went out for just a 10-minute photo shoot but produced an iconic image that has burned itself into the common psyche of millions of fans.

The pedestrian crossing joins the Abbey Road Studios on the Grade 11 listing.

BTW, here's that info from the first paragraph:

• order of walking: John, Ringo, Paul, George
• who's wearing what: John, white suit; Ringo, black suit; Paul, blue suit; George, jeans and jean jacket
• who's out of step: Paul