A website dedicated to the Mumbai that was

Twentyeightyearold Simin Patel spent the best part of last year holed up at the Maharashtra State Department Archives at Elphinstone College Kala Ghoda researching the cityrsquos colonial past for her PhD she is undertaking at the University of Oxford Sailorrsquos home at the junction of Apollo Bunder Road and Apollo Street presently Maharashtra Police Headquarters The construction of the Sailorsrsquo Home was a significant step towards containing and domesticating the population of seamen in the city long considered drunk disorderly and prone to recreate at taverns boarding houses grog shops and brothels The structure has three nautical motifs u00a0quotI was reading about what Bombay was like and around me Irsquod see old balconies crumbling intricate tiling disappearing to make way for large ungainly slabs of granite Thatrsquos when I decided to start the website Bombaywalla org to help chronicle all thatrsquos beautiful in the cityrsquos architecture but we are losing and fastrdquo says Patel sipping on a tall glass of juice at Cafeacute Samovar at Jehangir Art Gallery Meher Cold Drink House was built in 1939 in Mackawee Mansion corner of Gunbow Street and Parsi Bazaar Street Fort presently Rustom Sidhwa Marg Until the early 1900s Bombayrsquos native population largely consumed cold drinks in public since strict caste codes forbade interdining Meher Cold Drink House a sprightly 74 now is a typical example of the early establishments that facilitated the experience of cosmopolitan drinking and eventually dining Patel launched the Bombaywalla on March 21 where she uploads photographs of old city structures balconies flooring porticos lifts and so on The site is updated every Monday and Friday and each photograph is accompanied by a short description and the history behind the structure Bombaywalla is about all things that are on their path to oblivion but Patel is clear that hers is not only a story of loss The clock tower at the junction of Hornby Road and Carnac Road presently Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Mandai M Khana Road Arthur Traverse Crawford 18351911 had a sociable and controversial tenure as a civil servant in various parts of Western India including as the first Municipal Commissioner of Bombay See the monogram lsquoATCrsquo on the clock tower A gargoyle at the Asiatic Society of Mumbai Fort The temperament of the gargoyles in Bombay is determined by the style of the structures from which they protrude This benign creature belongs to the solid calm faccedilade of the Town Hall a landmark city structure in neoclassical style Bombaywallarsquos coverage of gargoyles ranges from the benign to the spectacularly Grotesque ldquoI want Bombaywalla to be about things we arenrsquot seeing closely enoughmdashhow roads were named after communities not after people and politicians as they are now for instance So many art deco buildings on the Marine Drive stretch donrsquot have the ornamentation and grilling anymore Theyrsquove all been plastered but how many of us have bothered to lookrdquo The red building at Parsi Bazaar Street Elphinstone Circle Fort is presently SA Belvi Marg Horniman Circle The building houses the offices of The Bombay Samachar 1822 Asiarsquos oldest newspaper Formerly the premises were also used by the Bombay Chronicle 19131949 after whose editors Benjamin Guy Horniman and Syed Abdullah Brelvi the Circle and Street have been renamed Patel works with her college friends DJ Murty the photographer Sitanshu Shukla who handles design and branding and Shaun Coutinho design and programming to run Bombaywalla The website also has a lsquoWatchrsquo section which tries to archive violations in heritage and conservation in the city Patel is also open to accepting contributions from people when it comes to trivia and photographs of structures in their own areas in whichever part of the city that might be Esplanade Road Fort presently Esplanade Mansion Mahatma Gandhi Road In the early hotel trade in Bombay leading proprietorsrsquo names were synonymous with their hotels The Esplanade Hotel was popularly called Watsonrsquos Hotel after John Watson the English proprietor and merchant One can see the monogram lsquoWrsquo on the balcony railing Medows Street presently Nagindas Master Road holds the dubious distinction of the most corrupted street name in the city Named after General Sir William Medows Governor and CommanderinChief of Bombay from 178890 the street was locally referred to as the Ingrez or Angrezi Bazaar since it housed a profusion of European shops By the 1860rsquos lsquoMedowsrsquo had been distorted to lsquoMedowrsquo and subsequently lsquoMeadowrsquo and lsquoMeadowsrsquo