Plaza Cinema

Tony Newman on June 10, 2013 at 6:40 pm

In the time I was a cinema goer in Leeds the Plaza was always known as a sex cinema but I always wanted to know what it was like inside. Then they showed night of the livin dead. I was underage but determined to get in and get in I did. I went up to the box office and said one please the girl (who didn’t look any older than me)smiled and handed it over. First surprise! second one was waiting inside. What a lovely place it was much bigger than I thought, it had a balcony and was very warm and very comfy. what a waste of a beautiful cinema! It could have been so much more than it ever was.

Ian on February 9, 2009 at 9:18 am

The Plaza was inserted into the Assembly rooms after a fire damaged the original room. Parts of the plasterwork have been relocated in the new Howard Assembly Rooms ( which are adaptable and acoustically superb – just a shame that the fine Plaza auditorium was obliterated to re-create the original design). Photos from February 2009 here:–

Interior:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/3265079994/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/3264256335/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/3265080688/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/3265071554/

and an exterior:-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stagedoor/3264245641/

Ken Roe on August 6, 2008 at 1:56 pm

In 1963, hundreds of Leeds school children were taken to special screenings at the Plaza Cinema to see the controversial (at that time) British sex film “The Yellow Teddy Bears” which dealt with the subjects of teenage pregnancy and abortion.