Bush tales

As we totter towards the end of the last full calendar year of the BBC at Bush House, may I point you to a pair of programmes about its history, fronted by Sir John Tusa ?  "Goodbye to Bush House" goes out at various times from Christmas Eve. 

The first half of 2012 will be odd for those remaining World Service and News staff making the move to the wide-open spaces of the re-developed Broadcasting House.  They'll be dotted around various floors of the building, waiting for the Television Centre news behemoth to join them after the Olympics, in a drawn-out migration. The Guardian moved to King's Cross in less than a month. 

Meanwhile we can start speculation on what might happen to Bush House, dubbed the "most expensive building in the world" when it opened in 1925.  It was designed by American Harvey Corbett, and was intended for use initially by an Anglo-American trading organisation headed by Irving T. Bush - hence the name.   

BBC overseas broadcasting started moving in 1941, after the bombing of Broadcasting House.  The freehold is owned by Kato Kaguku, who has made his fortune out of corn syrup, and picked up the odd trophy building on the way, including Tower 49 in New York and the Hyatt Regency, Chicago.