Leicester Square one bust each of famous former residents in the square: the scientist Sir Isaac Newton designed by W. Calder Marshall; Sir Joshua Reynolds, the first President of the Royal Academy by H. Weekes; John Hunter, a pioneer of surgery, by T. Wooler; and William Hogarth, the painter, by J. Durham. Ownership transferred to Westminster City Council in 1933. The most recent addition was a bronze statue of film star and director Charlie Chaplin, designed by sculptor John Doubleday in 1981. On the pavement were inscribed the distances in miles to several Commonwealth countries, including Canada, Kenya and Jamaica. After the
Empire, Leicester Square adjacent building (1–4 Leicester Square) that opened in 1937, which was originally designed as a newsreel cinema, the architect being George Coles. It was acquired by MGM for moveovers of feature films, and later renamed Empire 2. It has been refurbished several times, notably in 1970 with Sidney Kaye, Eric Firmin and Partners as the architects, and revamped in the 2000s with the addition of a new stadium seating structure. A separate entrance was retained until the mid-1980s, subsequent to which access has been via the main cinema foyer level, by entering into a stairwell leading down to the auditorium.