Oxford Street and other areas of Central London such as Bond Street and Piccadilly due to "pickpocketing, fraud and theft". The advent of closed-circuit television has reduced the area's attraction to scam artists and illegal street traders. Every Christmas, Oxford Street is decorated with festive lights. The tradition of Christmas lights began in 1959, five years after neighbouring Regent Street. There were no light displays in 1976 or 1977 because of economic recession, but the lights returned in 1978 when Oxford Street organised a laser display, and have continued every year since. Current practice involves a celebrity turning the lights on in
Regent Street down a "de facto" line separating the upper classes and nobility in Mayfair with the working class in Soho. The northern section involved demolishing most of the existing Swallow Street, which had become run down and was an ideal candidate for regeneration. The road was designed to curve east between Oxford Street and Piccadilly so that it did not meet St James's Square, and the circuses allowed visual continuity down the street. The central section, known as the Quadrant, was designed for "shops appropriated to articles of fashion and taste," and was Nash's centrepiece for the street. It was built