{"id":275,"date":"2008-06-26T23:38:00","date_gmt":"2008-06-26T23:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/u75blog\/?p=275"},"modified":"2011-07-03T01:44:29","modified_gmt":"2011-07-03T00:44:29","slug":"around-leicester-and-trafalgar-squares","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/around-leicester-and-trafalgar-squares\/","title":{"rendered":"Around Leicester and Trafalgar Squares"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Some snaps from my wander around central London yesterday:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leicester-square-02.jpg\" alt=\"Around Leicester and Trafalgar Squares\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Street artist in Leicester Square.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leicester-square-06.jpg\" alt=\"Around Leicester and Trafalgar Squares\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The half-demolished 1962 Swiss Centre in Leicester Square. The building was originally designed to provide a showcase for Switzerland and hosted a Swiss bank and the Swiss National Tourist Board.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leicester-square-09.jpg\" alt=\"Around Leicester and Trafalgar Squares\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The original Empire Theatre opened with a production of &#8216;Chilperic&#8217; which was a &#8216;Grand Musical Spectacular&#8217; by Florimund Herve in 1884.<br \/>\nJust three years later it had been become &#8216;The Empire Theatre of Varieties,&#8217; reverting back to The Empire Theatre in 1898 before finally closing and being demolished in January 1927.<\/p>\n<p>The second Empire Theatre opened as a cinema in November 1928, although it still put on occasional ballet and dancing shows before closing in May 1961 after a 76 week run of &#8216;Ben Hur.&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>After a major reconstruction, the third incarnation of the Empire Theatre opened in December 1962, and now hosts a cinema and casino.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leicester-square-11.jpg\" alt=\"Around Leicester and Trafalgar Squares\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The 20 feet tall tower of the art deco Odeon Leicester Square, once the &#8216;flagship&#8217; cinema of Oscar Deutsch&#8217;s Odeon Theatres Ltd.<\/p>\n<p>Built on the site of the Alhambra Theatre (1883-1936), the Odeon opened for business on 2nd November 1937, offering 2,116 seats &#8211; and all of them covered in mock leopard-skin!<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leicester-square-15.jpg\" alt=\"Around Leicester and Trafalgar Squares\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Trafalgar Square at night.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/images\/leicester-square-19.jpg\" alt=\"Around Leicester and Trafalgar Squares\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.urban75.org\/london\/leicester-square-trafalgar-square.html\"><br \/>\nMore photos<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Some snaps from my wander around central London yesterday: Street artist in Leicester Square.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6336,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[194,17,193,1],"tags":[138,10,35],"class_list":["post-275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-london-features","category-photos","category-places","category-stuff","tag-leicester-square","tag-london","tag-trafalgar-square"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/leicester-square-02.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pQI7P-4r","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=275"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4617,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/275\/revisions\/4617"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6336"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urban75.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}