Merrion Odeon
The former Odeon cinema, in the Merrion Centre, is now largely forgotten but the site remains behind locked doors as it did in the 1970s. The site only operated as a cinema for 13 years between 1964 and 1977 before it was closed.
Where some Yorkshire Bank cash machines are within the centre was the main entry into a cinema that could accommodate nearly 1,000 film fans, The doors have now been boarded up but remain, padlocked, behind the wall holding the cash machines.
The cinema occupies a space above the current Home Bargins (Formally Woolworths) and, if you take the stairs in the Merrion Centre to the upper level, you can still see a second set of doors into the former cinema near an entrance into the Merrion Centre car park.
The projection equipment has been removed, as have the seats but much of the building remains untouched. The cinema is now inaccessible, but in 2002 Greg Taylor, who works for a TV company, was inside the redundant building scouting for possible TV locations and took a series of photographs.
In a similar location to where the Merrion Centre is now an Odeon "Super Cinema" was planned on Merrion Street and was possibly of the typical Odeon art deco style but was cancelled presumably due to the purchase of the former Paramount cinema and the start of World War II .
Read more about this topic: Odeon Cinema Leeds