Beautiful View of Fort Area In 19th Century Bombay, 1880 Photo
A 1880 photo of a beautiful Fort Area in 19th-century Bombay (Mumbai). Rampart Row (now K. Dubash Marg) is on the right, and the narrower Forbes Street is on the left.
The place comes under the Kala Ghoda precinct in Fort, South Bombay. The other side of the K Dubash Marg is the confines of the famous Prince of Wales Museum (not visible). Bombay street scenes convey the Britishers’ pride in their urban planning. By around 1850, land reclamation united the city’s original seven islands into a single land mass.
The city would undergo an even more radical transformation in the 1860s. When Governor Henry Bartle Frere developed Bombay from a fortified trading town into an urban metropolis. Frere introduced a master plan, which included the demolition of the massive fort walls and moats. And in its place constructed wide new avenues and boulevards, creating a modern city.
Also read Kala Ghoda-Fort and the making of a high-street retail hub.
Did you know – the photo scene was taken from the famous Watson’s Hotel, which was once a Europeans-only hotel.
Past posts – Raja Ravi Varma’s “Birth of Shakuntala” Oleograph 1894., Cochin Snake Boat Race – Old Postcard 1951., Mount Road The European Shopping Center of Madras, 1910 Print.
