As the 44th anniversary of the Beatles' "Abbey Road" approaches, fans of the beloved British band are descending in droves to the eponymous London street where John, Paul, Ringo and George posed for the album's now-iconic cover.





According to Yahoo's Chris Willman, the classic photo was snapped on August 8, 1969, by photographer Iain Macmillan.


Macmillan reportedly stood on a stepladder, taking just a handful of shots of the band members as they sauntered across the street. A policeman is said to have held up traffic for a few brief moments as the photographer worked his magic.


"The whole idea, I must say, was Paul McCartney's," Macmillan told The Guardian in 1989, according to Willman. "A few days before the shoot, he drew a sketch of how he imagined the cover, which we executed almost exactly that day. I took a couple of shots of the Beatles crossing Abbey Road one way. We let some of the traffic go by and then they walked across the road the other way, and I took a few more shots. The one eventually chosen for the cover was number five of six. It was the only one that had their legs in a perfect 'V' formation, which is what I wanted stylistically."


Over the years, fans of the Fab Four have flocked to Abbey Road to recreate the band's forever-immortalized pose. The London street is so popular among Beatles enthusiasts, in fact, that Abbey Road Studios has set up a live webcam of the crossing so people can watch in real time as fans make the pilgrimage.


According to The Telegraph, the number of people swarming the street has increased dramatically in recent weeks as the 44th anniversary of the album approaches. There have been "complaints from residents about graffiti and fans holding up traffic," the news outlet writes.


"It could have been very different, because the original title was going to be 'Everest,'" Beatles tour guide Richard Porter told the Telegraph of the classic album's name. "But someone suggested they go to Mount Everest to take the photo and they said, 'No, we're not doing that,' so they took the photo out here virtually outside the studio."


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