A 70-year-old resident of south Kolkata’s Naktala brought her grandsons and daughters to see what the New Year looks like on Park Street.
A software professional took an early exit from his workplace in New Town so he could take his family to Eco Park and then touch down on Park Street.
Sunday was a one-year-old girl’s first visit to Park Street with her parents who are settled in Bangalore.
Kolkatans stepped out in numbers to celebrate the New Year and the usual hotspots were filled with people from places near and far.
The Naktala septuagenarian insisted that her grandsons see a lit-up Park Street on January 1. The much younger software professional, Sankhadeep Ghatak, from southwest Kolkata’s Behala, convinced his boss to let him leave work early so he could take his son and wife out.
Park Street was overwhelmingly the crowd favourite.
The Alipore zoo, Victoria Memorial and the Maidan had large crowds, too.
The zoo recorded a crowd count of 90,027 on Monday.
In New Town, Eco Park recorded more than 1 lakh visitors, while Mother’s Wax Museum and the Aircraft Museum had a steady stream of people throughout the day. Picnic lunches were a common sight across all these places, which also saw LED wands, twinkling headbands and glowing devil horns being sold like hot cakes.
On the Maidan, pony and carriage rides were the order of the day. There was a sizeable queue in front of the Victoria Memorial since the afternoon for a ride on a horse-drawn carriage.
Many of those who were at the Victoria Memorial, Indian Museum and the Alipore zoo started heading out for Park Street from 4.30pm. The crowd on Park Street peaked around 7.30pm.
Unlike Christmas Eve, police did not turn Park Street into a pedestrians-only corridor. Vehicles headed for Mullickbazar from the Jawaharlal Nehru Road crossing were allowed to move through the road.
The police, however, set up guardrails along the walkways and pedestrians were not allowed to set foot on the main carriageway.
Naktala resident Bandana Chakraborty, 70, was spotted walking with grandsons Adi Majumder, a Class VII student of Birla High School, and Sohan Chakraborty, who studies in Class X at South Point High School.
Chakraborty convinced daughters Madhurima and Ishani to ensure they did not miss “the lit-up wonder that Park Street” had been since Christmas Eve.
“We had some food and waited for the evening to set in as we wanted to see the lights,” Chakraborty said.
Healthcare professional Ayan Sett, who works in Bangalore, brought his one-year-old daughter Nayanika and wife to Park Street to have dinner at Trincas.
