My favourite haunt for over 60 years is in the limelight for all the wrong reasons and I am left to wonder whether my city’s most well-known street will ever be the same again (“What does Park Street mean to you?”, March 25). My love affair with Park Street began in the 1950s on an outing to Kwality restaurant. As a pre-teen boarding school student, I was awestruck by Park Street and all it had to offer.
To me, the Park Street that matters is the stretch from Chowringhee to Middleton Row — because of the impact this strip has had on our city’s cultural and social identity.
Standing at the Chowringhee end of Park Street was the department store, Hall & Anderson, which acted as a beacon to families of the Raj wanting to shop in style. The other corner of the majestic building on Russell Street led to the rear entrance of Bengal Club. Opposite this stood the Royal Asiatic Society, Chinese restaurant Peiping, Modern Hairdressers and Great Western Stores. A little further down was the entrance to Artistry House and the Grail Club with its two tennis courts.
Down the street, one had to cross Trinca’s; Usha Aiyer (later Uthup) and Eve were the most famous singers there. Next came Oxford Bookshop and Sahib Singh’s, a one-stop shop for medicines and beauty products. A few steps away was Kwality restaurant and snug by its side the famous Banarasi paanshop, a must-stop after a meal on Park Street. Legend has it that when asked by the owner of The Park how much he wanted for his little shed so that the hotel could expand, the paanwala retorted: “How much do you want for your property?”
On the opposite pavement stood Galstaun Mansions, later rechristened Queens Mansions. The arcade of this grand building housed names like Oriental Gas Company, Mirta Lina specialising in ladies garments, master tailors Barkat Ali & Brothers and Sahni & Sons, jeweller Satramdas Dhalamal, ice-cream parlour Magnolia where Pat Tarley belted out popular songs in her inimitable style, Chemould art gallery, Castlewoods selling sports goods, Harmony House offering musical and electrical appliances, hairdressers AN John and Middleton Engineering. Many are still there.
The pavement of this arcade was also the starting point of the fairy tale of a peddler of Tibetan gewgaws, who went on to open the legendary Chamba Lama store in New Market.
Then there was Stephen Court, which housed Margaret Walker beauty parlour, furniture store JE Tomlins and the tea room Flurys. There weren’t many offices then in Stephen Court and the graceful building had not been vandalised by the addition of two illegal and ugly floors.
A mention must be made of the people who helped make Park Street truly “the street for all reasons”— the Stephens, the Galstauns, Bill Lichtman (Uncle Bill to one and all), the Arathoons, the Carbones, the Saigals, the Malhotras, Ivy Sengupta, Rhoda Dustoor, Maggie Meyers, and many more.
For all those who perished in the fire, we offer our prayers and an apology for the collective failure of the city and its teeming millions in preventing their deaths. One can only hope that Park Street will emerge stronger and wiser from this catastrophe.
Dilip Chatterjee,
Picnic Garden Road
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| Lest we forget: Candles outside Stephen Court. A Telegraph picture |
Apropos “Blood on their hands after blaze” April 1, primarily the responsibility of preventing a blaze lies with the owners of a building, the CMC, police, the fire department and CESC. Had they discharged their duties “honestly”, illegal additions, construction of illegal cubicles and blocking of passage could have been avoided at Stephen Court.
However, the tenants and the sub-tenants cannot be absolved of all responsibilities either. They piled garbage on the staircase, fitted air-conditioners without increasing the capacity of electricity meters and never bothered to replace the age-old wiring system. I have been visiting Stephen Court for over three decades and have witnessed the lack of even basic facilities like cleaning of blocked sewer lines at the Park Street “landmark”.
A.S. Mehta,
New Alipore
It is only when an appaling incident like the Stephen Court blaze occurs that the government wakes up. Apropos “Is the building you live/work in a death trap?” March 28, I live in Marquis Lane. God forbid, if ever a blaze occurs, I would not know where to run! We are surrounded by buildings and lack proper exits. Electrical wires hang all over the building, while wooden staircases and poor lighting make matters worse! Even a fire engine will not be able to reach my home in case of a fire.
Michelle Mendes,
Marquis Lane
The Stephen Court tragedy has rattled every Calcuttan. Could this happen to our city? Can such a huge fire really break out in the lifeline of our city? Could it be so uncontrollable that 43 precious lives could be lost?
It is so sad that we had to wait for such a huge tragedy to tell us how unsafe we are in our own homes! We are nothing more than sitting ducks in the hands of our administration and realtors. Even the resignation of the fire minister would not have helped, someone else would occupy his seat and promise some changes, but nothing would eventually happen.
Unfortunately, we are “learning” so many lessons from this fire tragedy. We realise that the blame game is a never-ending process. It’s time we started thinking about our safety and never compromise on safety issues. Realtors will build or sell properties and disappear, it is you and I who will be living or working there! Let’s not wait for another tragedy like Stephen Court to think about what we can do.
Sudipa Dutta Chowdhury,
Dum Dum Park
I lived in Stephen Court for a while in the 1970s. My father-in-law worked for the railways, which had taken a flat at Stephen Court on lease. I remember the rickety lift and the dark and gloomy staircase. The flat was sprawling and we never needed to use all the rooms. Park Street means everything that is glamourous in Calcutta. Occasional lunches/dinners at Sky Room or Waldorf were all that we could afford. Now, we visit Music World, Flurys and the Oxford Bookstore. Park Street means the glorious past of Calcutta, which is slowly deserting us.
Rudradeb Mukhopadhyay,
Address not mentioned
I feel impelled to ink a rejoinder to Tapan Pal’s letter “Counterpoint”, February 10, in response to mine titled “Book retort” on November 25. This is not so much to mount a counterattack on Pal for what he has said to rebut my views as to prove the point that the love for books among Calcuttans is proverbially insatiable. Also, such a process of point-counterpoint does not breed enmity, rather it widens the scope for dissemination of diverse views on any subject.
I feel Pal’s description of Calcutta Book Fair as an assemblage of “semi-literates” is an abominable assault on the dignity of lakhs of book-loving people congregating at the fair grounds. Let Pal rest content with the Internet culture. We too take to the Internet to get to know many things, but we will never look upon the web as a substitute for books.
P.B. Saha,
Salt Lake
The Metro report “Game on for boardroom bunch”, dated February 27, mentioned the Bengal Motor Sports Club as the only motor sports club in the city. May I please point out that the Calcutta Motor Sports Club is India’s first motor sports club. Established in 1949, the club’s nationwide activities have led to the founding of many motor sports clubs in the country. These include the Federation of Motor Sports Clubs of India, the governing body of Indian motor sports, and the Madras Motor Sports Club, the largest motor sports club in the country.
Ravi Kumar,
chairman, Calcutta Motor Sports Club
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