Leicester Square

The statue of William Shakespeare, sculpted by Giovanni Fontana, an Italian sculptor, after an original by Peter Scheemakers, has formed the centrepiece of Leicester Square Gardens in London since 1874.

Scenes in the Square is a film-themed sculpture trail in Leicester Square, London. Eight sculptures were installed in February 2020. These sculptures depict characters from the last 100 years of cinema including Laurel and Hardy, Mary Poppins, Batman, Bugs Bunny, Don Lockwood portrayed by Gene Kelly, Paddington Bear, Mr. Bean, and Wonder Woman. A sculpture of Harry Potter was installed later on in 2020 and then in 2021, a sculpture of the Iron Throne from Game of Thrones was added.

Wyld's Great Globe (also known as Wyld's Globe or Wyld's Monster Globe) was an attraction situated in London's Leicester Square between 1851 and 1862, constructed by James Wyld (1812–1887), a distinguished mapmaker and former Member of Parliament for Bodmin. At the centre of a purpose-built hall was a giant globe, 60 feet 4 inches (18.39 m) in diameter. The globe was hollow and contained a staircase and elevated platforms which members of the public could climb in order to view the surface of the earth on its concave interior, modelled in plaster of Paris, complete with mountain ranges and rivers all to scale. Punch described the attraction as "a geographical globule which the mind can take in at one swallow." In the surrounding galleries were displays of Wyld's maps, globes and surveying equipment. Wyld originally proposed that the globe should be constructed at the Great Exhibition, but its size and Wyld's desire to run it as a promotional venture precluded it from being featured inside the Crystal Palace, so Wyld negotiated with the owners of the gardens of Leicester Square, and after much wrangling secured an agreement to site it there for ten years. The exhibition hall and model of the Earth were hastily constructed to coincide with the Great Exhibition. In its first year the Great Globe was a resounding success, with visitor numbers second only to those of the Great Exhibition, but from 1852 onward public interest in the attraction slowly waned. Though the novelty of a concave globe continued to win accolades for Wyld, he was faced with competition from other educational attractions, and had to adapt the entertainments on offer in order to maintain visitor numbers. Wyld held topical exhibitions and gave lectures on current events, and attempted to transfer ownership of the attraction to the "Cosmos Institute" to establish a national geographic and ethnological museum. In 1862, when Wyld's agreement for the use of the land expired, the exhibition hall was removed and the globe broken up and sold for scrap. The complicated ownership of Leicester Square gardens, combined with Wyld's failure to honour his agreement to restore the gardens after the removal of the exhibition building, led to extensive legal wrangling and questions in Parliament. Wyld finally sold his interests in the gardens, and in 1874 they were donated to the City of London. Although there were other proposals for giant globes, and a few were constructed, it was not until 1935 that a large concave globe was recreated in the form of Chester Lindsay Churchill's Mapparium at the Mary Baker Eddy Library in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Leicester Square Theatre is a 400-seat theatre near Leicester Square, in the City of Westminster, London. It was previously known as Notre Dame Hall, Cavern in the Town and The Venue. The theatre hosts stand-up comedy, cabaret, music, plays and comedies.

The Leverian collection was a natural history and ethnographic collection assembled by Ashton Lever. It was noted in particular for the content it acquired from the voyages of Captain James Cook. For three decades it was on display in London, being broken up by auction in 1806. The first public location of the collection was the Holophusikon, also known as the Leverian Museum, at Leicester House, on Leicester Square, from 1775 to 1786. After it passed from Lever's ownership, it was displayed for nearly twenty years more at the purpose-built Blackfriars Rotunda just across the Thames, sometimes called Parkinson's Museum for its subsequent owner, James Parkinson (c. 1730-1813).

The Alhambra was a popular theatre and music hall located on the east side of Leicester Square, in the West End of London. It was built originally as the Royal Panopticon of Science and Arts opening on 18 March 1854. It was closed after two years and reopened as the Alhambra. The building was demolished in 1936. The name was also adopted by many other British music hall theatres located elsewhere; in Bradford, in Hull and in Glasgow etc. The name comes from association with the Moorish splendour of the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain.

Ciro's, often written Ciros, was an exclusive nightclub in Orange Street, Leicester Square, London, "just behind the National Gallery". It was famously closed during WWI for serving alcohol illegally. A fashionable club of the same name later opened at the same location.

Cities of London and Westminster (also known as City of London and Westminster South from 1974 to 1997) is a constituency returning a single Member of Parliament (MP) to the House of Commons in the United Kingdom Parliament. It is a borough constituency for the purposes of election expenses and type of returning officer. As with all constituencies, the election is decided using the first past the post system of election. Since its creation at the 1950 general election, the constituency has always elected the candidate nominated by the Conservative Party.

The Empire, Leicester Square is a cinema currently operated by Cineworld on the north side of Leicester Square, London. The Empire was originally built in 1884 as a variety theatre and was rebuilt for films in the 1920s. It is one of several cinemas in and adjoining Leicester Square which are regularly used for film premieres and first runs. Today, it has nine auditoria, including an IMAX (IMAX with Laser projection), a Superscreen (Premium Large Format (PLF), 4K projection and Dolby Atmos sound), and a 4DX screen.

The Odeon Luxe West End is a two-screen cinema on the south side of Leicester Square, London. It has historically been used for smaller film premieres and hosting the annual BFI London Film Festival. The site is on an adjacent side of the square to the much larger flagship Odeon Luxe Leicester Square. Odeon Cinemas sold the building to three Irish investors in 2006, who continued to lease it. In 2012, it was bought by the Radisson Edwardian hotel group. It closed as a cinema on 1 January 2015. After extensive asbestos removal, the entire site was demolished the same year.It reopened in September 2021 as an Odeon Luxe cinema, following a £300 million redevelopment of the site that also includes a luxury hotel. It is London's second Dolby Cinema.

Kinky Gerlinky was an influential British clubnight that began in 1989 in London, England. It was hosted by fashion impresarios Michael and Gerlinde Kostiff and co-hosted by Winn Austin. The club night ended in 1994 following the sudden death of one of the organisers Gerlinde Kostiff.

The 400 Club was a night club at 28a Leicester Square, in the West End of London. The building was originally home to the Cranbourne Club, then part of it became a cinema in 1909, with a basement tearoom. In 1914, it became Cupid's Cinema and in 1926, the Palm Court Cinema, but closed in 1928 in the face of mounting competition. It later became a restaurant, before it was the 400 Club.For two decades the 400 Club catered to "the upper classes at night time".During World War II, the 400 Club was frequented by people in the armed forces. These included Battle of Britain pilots, one of whom, Brian Kingcome, recollected in his memoirs spending time at " . . . the Four Hundred, whose dimly lit dance floor and seductive music were excellent backdrops for young men in uniform trying their luck with the 'I'm off to war tomorrow and may never come back' routine . . . "There was an 18-piece orchestra, and it was a favourite of Princess Margaret from the early 1950s, with the table used by her and her friends being known as "The Royal Box".From 1957, the 400 no longer required gentlemen patrons to wear a dinner jacket.In the 1970s, it became Adam's, an upscale gay cub, then Subway, a sleazy gay disco that was closed down by the local council, then the Comedy Store. In 1992, the cinema became part of the Wetherspoon's pub The Moon under Water, with the basement a nightclub called Storm and later Club Koo.