Odeon Stepney
46 Brick Lane,
Stepney,
London,
E1 6RF
46 Brick Lane,
Stepney,
London,
E1 6RF
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Located in the east London inner city district of Stepney. The Mayfair Cinema was built on the site of the Brick Lane Palace Theatre. It opened on 29th January 1936 with Kay Johnson in “Jalna” and William Powell in “Escapade”. It was built as an independent for D.J. James and was taken over by Eastern Cinemas in 1937. The facade was flat and faced with white faiance tiles with the name ‘Mayfair’ across the top, under which was a black tiled panel which had the weeks attractions spelt out in moveable letters. Seating in the auditorium was in stalls and balcony.
Eastern Cinemas became part of General Cinemas Financing (GCF) who were later merged with Oscar Deutsch’s Odeon Theatres Ltd in 1943. The Mayfair was re-named Odeon from 20th February 1950. It was closed by the Rank Organisation on 22nd July 1967 with Stuart Whitman in “Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines”. It was immediately sold to an independent operator who re-opened it on 31st July 1967 as the Naz Cinema screening Bollywood movies.
After a while, it was closed and became used as a store and indoor car park which continued until the late 1990’s when it was demolished and a block of flats known as Odeon Court was built on the site of the auditorium and a restaurant, currently known as Cafe Naz was built on the site of the foyer area. The facade was retained, but has been painted black over the cream faiance tiles.
Contributed by
KenRoe
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
An October 2004 view of the facade of the former Odeon, Stepney. This is all that remains of the original building. Hidden under the black paint are the original white faiance tiles:
http://flickr.com/photos/53257210@N00/115459482/
The Brick Lane Palace was actually located in Osborne Street (now Chicksand Street)a side road off Brick Lane. The auditorium of the Mayfair was built on the site of the old cinema and shops in Brick Lane were demolished to provide a new entrance to it. The Brick Lane Palace was an early work of George Coles, one of Britain’s premier cinema architects, who, I believe, has more listed cinemas to his name than any other architect.
two more shots from 2006 in the late afternoon sun
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/342520801/
and in 2009
http://www.flickr.com/photos/woody1969/4037811363/