I happen to live on North Street, and I love it. I live in an amazing flat and it is a superb location. The range of shops is not that bad, and as was mentioned earlier it connects all of the 'gems', so it is not necessary for it to also contain fabulous shops and architecture. I see North Street as for the locals with necessary amenities such as banks and newsagents. So leave it alone!!!

It's not the street itself, it's what the people of Brighton have made it! It may not be the classiest of streets, but Brighton isn't exactly a 'show town' is it? North Street and Churchill Square have a lovely sense of home, especially at Christmas time.

Does anyone remember Virgin record store in North Street in the 1960s? It was at the top end of the road. It had record booths where you could listen on a head set. I remember it as a seedy type of place. It must have been Richard Branston's first enterprise? This must be a claim to fame for North St.

Whilst I agree with Geof Mead that the North Street of today is not what it was, in essence, I'm prone to nostalgia, so it's memories of the past that often flood back. I recall simple things like not having to be a taxi or bus to drive in either direction and that you could take any turn to the right or left without infringing any local legislation. I also remember the burley doorman supervising the Sunday queue in the Regent's lower entrance in North Street, Flash Gordon and shouting my head off at the Saturday morning children's film shows, and in the days before supermarkets, being dumped for an hour and a bit at the Princes News Theatre and then waiting for what seemed like hours to be picked up afterwards. As a youth I recall making a single coffee last the whole evening in The Lounge coffee bar, my Italian suit with cardboard handkerchief from Monty Burton, and how I loved watching any payments made at Horn Brothers being put into cylinders in their vacuum operated cash machines, my money being sucked away and within minutes my receipt returning with a loud plonk. Although I now live abroad and realise all that has gone, I think you can still stand on the steps at the North Street entrance of Boots and look into the past from there. For example, unless local legislation has vandalised it, there should still be an ancient terracotta griffin on the tight apex of the peg-tile roof that was once over the Princes theatre, and also the Victorian hatter's hand painted advertisement on the wall next to it. My advice to anyone that visits North Street these days is to ignore the dereliction, gaudiness and tat, and remember the past. If you take the time to think back, by looking above and below the various shop fronts, aspects of the original architecture and historical landscape are still there to enjoy.

Response to David Maynard above.
There is a 1970s picture showing the Virgin store on the corner of North Street on the following website.
http://www.terramedia.co.uk/brighton/Regent.htm

I enjoy North Lane a bit more than North Road because a man stopped me in the street and told me that all the food places made you get food poisoning! North Road and North Lane are both fun and exciting though!

I am opening a coffee house/patisserie in North Street and would love to see some old pictures (if there are any) of the old Clarence Hotel.