Contrary to the assertion in your report (The Height of Luxury…, 9 June), the youth homelessness charity Centrepoint was not “named after” the office tower Centre Point so much as inspired by it. In the early 2000s, the Rev Ken Leech, the activist vicar of St Anne’s in Soho in the late 1960s, told me the actual origin of the name.
He and a group of parishioners were active campaigners for social housing and against homelessness and commercial property speculation. Greatly exercised also about drug-taking and homeless young people in Soho, they were planning an emergency night shelter in the vicarage basement and casting around for a name.
One member (the eminent British sociologist Ruth Glass, who coined the term “gentrification”) suggested “Centrepoint” because that would surely confuse the postman and at least inconvenience greatly the much-detested Harry Hyams, owner of Centre Point.
Anthony Lawton
CEO Centrepoint (2000-08)
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
• Read more Guardian letters – click here to visit gu.com/letters
