Karnani Mansion Pictures by Anindya Shankar Ray

Karnani Mansion
on Free School Street-Park Street crossing

Painted a lurid salmon pink of late, the five-storeyed building has three staircases. A new lift has been installed after ages, but building’s interiors are as filthy as before.

The wiring is being repaired but a tangle of cables hangs from the bridges that connect the main building with the smaller annexe. The terrace is a small village and the occupants light open fires to cook. The sprawling courtyard is used as a car park and that could impede movement in case of an emergency. From the third floor upwards, many flats have been turned into factories where garments are manufactured. Some of these are used as godowns as well. The corridors, where garments are packed, are lined with air-conditioners. The three staircases are locked at night and occasionally in the daytime too. But who keeps the keys?

Esplanade Mansion

Esplanade Mansions
facing Curzon Park

A centurion, this art nouveau treasure has three blocks with eight flats each, of which only seven or eight are residential. It belongs to the Life Insurance Corporation of India that owns some very valuable real estate. Huge electrical loads have been added with air-conditioners and computer terminals without the requisite tests. Block II suffered a major electrical fire in November 2007. The staircases in the top floors are wooden. Each block originally had a fire escape, but the one in Block I has been removed and the rest are being allowed to disintegrate. A maze of exposed overhead electrical cables hangs loose all over the open-air car park.

Queens Mansion, adjacent to Stephen Court on Park Street. Picture by Pabitra Das

Queens Mansion
on Park Street, adjacent to Stephen Court

There are five blocks here in similar states of disrepair, except Block II, which was redone after a fire broke out last September. The ground floor has some famous addresses — Satramdas Dhalamal, Castlewood, A.N. John, Giggles and Magnolia restaurant.

The upper floors are residential apartments. Residents of Queens Mansion, owned by the Life Insurance Corporation of India, feel that their home could be the next victim. Naked wires and cables form a thick mesh near the stairs. There are numerous open meter boxes and switch boxes. In some of the blocks, the walls near the wires and meter boxes are damp. Thick cables run across the dilapidated first floor terrace.

In front of one of the terraces a bunch of cables and wires — television, electricity, Internet and telephone — is taped to a lamp post. Some of the wires run inside the building.

The lifts are old and ill-maintained. Some of the emergency phones outside the lifts and the fireman’s switch don’t work.

Residents complained that the alarms inside the lifts don’t function half the time.

The emergency exit outside the flats was removed by the landlord years back. And the terrace was locked up. Some blocks have a small fire extinguisher, others not even that.