It was irony heaped on irony. Four years ago, the last poster tore away from the New Empire walls. The film? 300: Rise of an Empire. It marked the fall of that iconic single-screen cinema which had limped along, suffering losses with viewers whittled to under 20 at any show. A double whammy closed those curtains forever on March 21, 2014, Navroze, the Spring Equinox festival of fresh beginnings.

How I longed to revisit the hall, witness to me weep buckets in the dark. Watching schmaltzy flicks like Love Story, which told smitten teens love means never having to say you're sorry (absurd advice, we soon realised) and left girls pining equally for Ryan O'Neal's baby face and Ali MacGraw's thick eyebrows. So I walked through the deserted yet stunning New Empire within days of its closure, with owners Maxie and Burge Cooper, delighting in the theatre's vintage machines and Deco design bands cemented on the proscenium.