Robinson Street, the most talked about street in the city in the past 48 hours, is a leafy residential avenue tucked so far away from the limelight that its old English name has survived the broom of change despite being located in the heart of Calcutta.

Surrounded by four of the best-known roads in the city - Park Street, Loudon Street, Theatre Road and Rawdon Street - Robinson Street till Thursday was known by some for the New Union Nursing Home and by a few for the house of Congress leader Kamal Nath.

On Friday, the 75-metre-long tree-lined street was discovered by scores of Calcuttans flocking for a closer look of the Hitchcock house at No. 3, where 44-year-old Partho De had been living in a room with the skeletons of his elder sister and two pet dogs for months till his father Arabindo's suicide brought police to the premises. Almost all those who turned up used their phone cameras to click pictures of the building and Partho's room.

"It's shocking. My father knew this family well. I was aware of their presence since they were the only other Bengali family staying in the area for years. But now I wonder if Robinson Street can retain its quiet and elegant character after such an incident," said Debasish Chakraborty, a doctor who lives three houses away from the De house. His family has been running the New Union Nursing Home at 6 Robinson Street for decades.

Some residents claimed that this was possibly the "smallest para" in the city with only seven properties laying claim to the street name. If one moves from Rawdon Street towards Loudon Street down the one-way road, the De house is the first one to the left, followed by the Nath house, which is guarded by security personnel 24x7. Then comes a property of SC Mazumdar, which has now been taken over by the Armenian Church. Opposite that is the New Union Nursing Home, also home to Debasish Chakraborty. Adjacent to it are two highrises of 12 and seven storeys followed by another property undergoing development for a residential project.

"Life might never be the same again for this quiet street," said a resident of Kanchanjangha, a highrise at 5A Robinson Street.

The origin of the road's name is mired in confusion. According to History of Calcutta's Streets by P. Thankappan Nair, H.E.A. Cotton says it is actually "Robison Street", named after Charles Knowles Robison, police magistrate of Calcutta, in the 1840s and architect of the Metcalfe Hall and some other public buildings in Calcutta. However, another historian, A.K. Roy, believes the street was named after Rev. John Robinson, who was a translator at Calcutta High Court.

The name has remained unchanged over the past 100 years or so unlike most other roads in Calcutta. Take the four surrounding roads - Loudon Street has become UN Brahmachari Sarani, Rawdon Street is Sarojini Naidu Sarani, Theatre Road is Shakespeare Sarani and Park Street is Mother Teresa Sarani.