"Abbey Road," the photograph, the crosswalk "zebra" after 40 years ...

The record album that became The Beatles' "Abbey Road" was originally to be titled "Everest," after the favorite cigarette of the band's recording engineer.

And there was an idea of doing an album cover of the Himalayas -- the mountains where Mt. Everest is located, which "helped kill the idea," reports the BBC in a story about the famous photo that became the famous LP cover that still draws tourists to the crosswalk, or "zebra," where the Fab Four once trod in a 15-minute photo session.

"...it is hard to think of an album cover that has been so thoroughly repeated.
Dozens of bands have put stripes on their cover, like the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, but of course the biggest tribute comes from the thousands of fans and tourists who go to leafy north London every year.

If you want to check the crossing now, there's a webcam.

Watch it for a while and you will see scampering fans snatching at a gap in the traffic to recreate the shoot - much to the annoyance of local drivers.

One black taxi cabbie, Ron, who also used to drive a bus down Abbey Road, told the BBC World Service: "I come here all the time and its always been the same - it really does annoy you."
"All they're doing is posing on the crossing. Someone's going to get mown down one of these days there's no doubt about it."

Click HERE for the webcam.

Click HERE for a video report (3 minutes, 42 seconds, preceded by a 30-second commercial for priceline.com starring William Shatner) from the BBC World Service, which includes a neighborhood resident complaining about the graffitti, a local official noting the grafitti is cleaned up every 6 to 8 weeks and an anecdote from a local bloke who recalled that within days of the Berlin Wall coming down he witnessed a group of East German Beatles lovers make the pilgrimage to the Abbey Road crosswalk, where they burst into tears.