Monopoly Tour

I know this is more like something to do than a destination, but years ago, whilst on a trip to England, I attempted to visit every street that was on the Monopoly board (London version). I thought it would be rather cool to actually see the streets that were just a name and a colour to me. So I grabbed a London City map, an all day bus pass and headed off to see the City Of Westminster.

When I had finished my own tour, I returned to my hire car just in time to see the parking inspector put a fine under my windscreen wiper. I smiled and said “no free parking huh”, she didn’t smile back!

Today you can take a Monopoly Taxi Tour but I still think it is more fun to just catch a bus and discover the streets yourself. Another alternative is to organise a London Monopoly Pub Crawl that’s quite an interesting alternative, have a drink on every street.

I unfortunately have no photo's of my monopoly trip but I have found someone who has and they have a Monopoly Board Blog on it.

A Brief History of Monopoly

Growing up with a London version of the game I was surprised to discover that the game originated from America or Atlantic City to be more exact. I had just assumed that the British would have been the ones to invent such a game. In 1934, Charles Darrow began marketing and selling his game about money and real estate. He happened to chose an interesting time in American history to try his luck with such a product, as the country was in the midst of The Great Depression. Darrow, having been rejected by the Parker Brothers, began manufacturing and selling his board game directly to FAO Schwartz a New York based toy company. Sure enough within a year he had the best–selling board game in the United States. But like all good stories there is always a catch. It seemed that a Virginian woman by the name of Lizzie Magie had created the game 30 years before Mr Darrow. Ms Magie had even taken a patented out on her game. The patent for the board game included streets, railroads, utilites and even “go to jail”. She called her game “The Landlords Game” (not as catchy) and sold it mainly to college campuses. Players had the liberty of changing the names of the streets to their own and adding new rules to the game play.In 1924 the now Mrs Lizzie Magie Phillips took out a second patent on the “Landlords Game’ incorporating the many changes that the game had taken on. The game was slowly gaining popularity in education circles. Ironically Mrs Phillips was the first to contact the Parker Brothers and was the first to be rejected by them. As the game bounced around the Midwest it eventually fell into the hands of a woman named Ruth Hoskins. Ruth moved to Atlantic City and introduced her friends to the game. Soon they too were hooked and began writing new rules and changing the location and street names to Atlantic City. As the circle of players grew, the game was eventually introduced to Darrow, an unemployed salesman. Sensing the games potential he changed the name to Monopoly, made a few graphical changes and obtained a copyright in 1933.Parker Brothers reconsidered their rejection notice after they heard the game was selling well in New York. They quickly licensed ‘Darrow’s’ game, bought out Lizzie’s patent and began a large marketing campaign. Sales skyrocketed and I guess the rest is history.

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