dadar

I happened to pass the Dadar Station today (no, not by train but by road). I had never observed the re-done exterior of the station and the board! Ok, for all the regular-commuters traveling by train, please don't wonder what has been re-done...I just happened to pass by the western side of the station after around four years now!

I normally never take this route and today when I did, I had to take a shot of how these letters stood out completely from the flyover! Dadar has been a transit point between the western and the central railway lines and is also the most busiest railway station in the city! Not many know that the Dadar-Matunga-Wadala-Sion scheme was planned as early as 1899-1900! The plan was formulated by the City Improvement Trust in order to relieve congestion in the centre of the town, following the plague epidemics of the 1890s.

The plans regulated constructions with emphasis on proper sanitation. No building was to be more than three storeys high, and the buildings were to have open spaces between them. The land-use was planned to be a mix of residential, commercial and institutional constructions. Parks and gardens were planned, and the streets were well laid out.

440 acres (1.8 km²) of land was procured and leased to the Government for selling. For the first time housing cooperatives were formed to take advantage of newly developed land. The Parsi and Hindu colonies in Dadar and the Tamil colony in Matunga were developed in this way.

Filled with history, somehow, this place is one of the many that always makes me wonder about the city's history...and how it would be years later...

For Dadar...