L'Olympia

The Olympia was originally built as an amusement park attraction called the Montagnes Russes. Its founder, the Catalan entrepreneur Joseph Oller, installed a massive indoor roller coaster on the site in the late eighteen eighties to capitalize on the public obsession with fairground thrills during the Belle Époque. When the police eventually ordered the coaster dismantled due to fire safety concerns, Oller repurposed the space into a grand music hall, opening it under its current name in eighteen ninety-three.