After a huge dome was built on the Greenwich Peninsula to celebrate the new millennium, it looked for all the world like its fate might be as London’s great boondoggle, sitting empty for the next 1,000 years like so many expo and Olympic sites around the planet.
The Millennium Dome was originally conceived under John Major’s Tory government but the project was vastly expanded by an excitable Tony Blair after Labour’s 1997 election landslide.
The Queen was among the 10,000 guests on New Year’s Eve 1999 to enjoy the fireworks and celebrate the failure of the “Millennium Bug” to bring down human civilisation.
Throughout 2000, the dome was home to the Millennium Dome Show, conceived by Peter Gabriel, and cultural and scientific exhibits in 14 commercially sponsored zones.
The dome was widely seen as a failure, having attracted six million visitors, when 12 million had been projected, and cost hundreds of millions of pounds. The operating company went into liquidation and the government had to find a way to dispose of the property - and shake off the cost of maintaining it.
Ideas were put forward to use it for a business park, a research centre, a housing development, a sports park or a huge casino.
But it eventually housed the O2 Arena, which opened with a performance by Bon Jovi on June 24, 2007.
1. Greenwich Peninsula
The back yards of Boord Street and Grenfell Street in East Greenwich, with the East Greenwich Gas Works in the background, in April 1973. The area was known as the Greenwich Peninsula or Greenwich Marshes, and later became the site of the Millennium Dome. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images) | Getty Images
2. Work under way
In 1998 the Cable and Wireless Adventurer passes by the under-construction Millenium Dome during her christening on the River Thames. (Photo by Graham Chadwick /Allsport/Getty) | Getty Images
3. Millennium Star
De Beers unveils the world’s biggest pear-shaped diamond, Millennium Star, in Tokyo in October 1999. The 203-carat diamond was exhibited for the public to celebrate the year 2000 from January 1 at the Millennium Dome. It was also one of the targets of an attempted heist. (Photo by Toru Yamanaka/AFP via Getty Images) | AFP via Getty Images
4. The Queen
On December 31, 1999 the Duke of Edinburgh and Queen Elizabeth II toasted the new millennium at the dome. (Photo by Arthur Edwards/AFP via Getty Images) | AFP via Getty Images