The jut-out jars. Incongruity looms on the Girgaon Chowpatty strip with the gross green bulk of The Hulk, as a gym mascot, filling a carved window of La Kozy Mansion-s pristine white jharokha-and-jaali facade. Built around 1891, mirroring the next-door wooden structure of Aaram Guesthouse which houses Crystal restaurant, La Kozy whispers tales from ornate crevices. Like its fine neighbours, Fulchand Niwas and Stone Building.

Before Baboolal Dalal of Khambhat, who traded in cotton futures, bought the building in 1924, an illustrious resident of 21 Chowpatty Sea Face the simple address ahead of Baboolal Mansion and, changing hands, Lila Mansion and La Kozy, was Dr Acacio Gabriel Viegas. Discovering the 1896 bubonic plague and saving lives inoculating 18,000 citizens against that "black death", the good doctor was the BMC-s first Christian president. The statue commemorating him lies near Framjee Cawasjee Institute, Dhobi Talao.