Beautiful Chowringhee Road In Colonial Era Calcutta, 1930 Photo
A 1930 photo shows a beautiful Chowringhee Road in Colonial-Era Calcutta (Kolkata). Chowringhee Road, the main thoroughfare of Calcutta, holds so much history of the British Raj and of WWII. The street has been the main commercial center of the city from the beginning of the colonial era.
This 1930 photo shows it crowded with cars, with an occasional tram seen on the lower side of the photo. The tall twin-domed building is the Metropolitan, which earlier housed the popular British-era departmental store “Whiteway, Laidlaw and Co”. The Bristol Hotel is seen in the lower left corner, it was established by a Briton in 1897.
Previous to that it operated under the names Palace Hotel and Hotel D’ Europe. Bristol Hotel later shifted to a building with two domes next door at No. 2, Chowringhee Road. The emptied premises was then taken over by Chowringhee Hotel. However, The Bristol Hotel continued in business for quite some time, it featured in the prominent hotels Calcutta in 1940. However, a decade later it closed down and the No.2 building is in utterly dilapidated condition now.
See also History lessons and hidden gems on a walking tour around Esplanade.
Did you know – after the British expanded outside Fort William in the mid-18th century, Chowringhee steadily evovled into a major commercial hub.
Past posts – Bhageerathi, The Wife Of Raja Ravi Varma, 1870 Photo., Old Pictorial Book 1903 – Views of Bombay Old & New., Making Of The Mullaperiyar Dam, 1895 Print., Tiger Hunt On Elephant back British India, 1905 Postcard.
