Commercial Street Bangalore’s Most Famous Shopping Center, 1900 Postcard
Commercial Street in Bangalore (Bengaluru) is one of the city’s oldest and most iconic shopping destinations. This 1900 photo postcard captures the street during the British era, when it was a quiet, tree-lined avenue with elegant colonial buildings. A striking contrast to the vibrant commercial hub it has become today. As Bangalore grew from a British military cantonment into India’s technology capital, Commercial Street evolved into one of the city’s busiest retail and tourist attractions.
Commercial Street was once home to many family-run businesses that served British officers and residents alike. During the British era, officers would arrive here on horseback, one of them was a young Winston Churchill. Churchill would shop for cigars and shoes at a well-known establishment, Rubin Moses & Sons, during his military service in Bangalore. Founded in the early 1900s, the store remained a landmark until it closed in the mid-1980s after the Jewish owner and his community emigrated to Israel. Click image to enlarge.
Did you know – after the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War in 1799, the British established the Bangalore Cantonment from a cluster of villages, creating one of the most important military stations in southern India.
