Alhambra Theatre

The Alhambra Theatre stands in Higher Openshaw, a district of Manchester in North West England. It opened in 1910 as part of the H. D. Moorhouse Theatre Circuit. By 1914 the building had been converted into a cinema. In the early 1960s it became a bingo hall. Later the auditorium housed a sporting club while other parts served as a restaurant, storage space and glass works. The theatre was demolished in 2009 to make way for a new Morrisons supermarket. Its life spanned less than a century and ended with the loss of the entire building. The site now carries a different kind of landmark, a large supermarket, where shoppers pass where the stage once stood. No trace of the Alhambra Theatre remains above ground. The supermarket occupies the ground while the memory lives only in records and photographs. The place offers no rooms, paths or views connected to the theatre, only aisles of goods and trolleys where once there were stalls and seats.