EC1500.
Officially: Shaftesbury Monument
Built: 1893
Designed by: Sir Alfred Gilbert
Type: Monument
Location: Piccadilly Circus

Sometimes it's hard to convince people of the truth. Try telling a New Yorker that the "Statue of Liberty" is really called "Liberty Enlightening The World" and you'll understand the difficulty involved in telling people this isn't Eros the pagan god of love. In reality, the archer atop this bronze fountain is an archer symbolizing the virtue charity. Appropriate enough, since it is dedicated to Lord Shaftesbury, for whom affordable housing was a pet cause. But Londoners have adopted it as a symbolic link to their pre-Roman Druidian past and keep calling it Eros.

1994 - A drunken tourist climbs up the fountain, damaging the statue. Please don't climb the art.