March 31, 2017

The Genesis Cinema on Mile End Road, Stepney, London, E1. The Eagle public house and music hall was built here in 1848, replaced by Lusby’s Music Hall, then in 1884 the theatrical architect Frank Matcham (Hackney Empire, London Palladium, etc) built the Paragon Theatre of Varieties where Charlie Chaplin gave some early comedy performances. It was renamed the Empire in 1912 and started showing films. Eventually the ABC cinema chain bought it and their chief architect W.R. Glen rebuilt it in his typical 1930s modernist style.

copyright: By SilkTork (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], via Wikimedia Commons