A month shy of 100: Marine Drive shows no sign of slowing down

In 1969, two star-crossed lovers left their respective homes in Byculla and booked themselves into a Marine Drive hotel. That night, in a desi version of Romeo and Juliet, the two consumed poison and had to be rushed to St George's Hospital in Fort. The girl survived, the boy didn't.
That Marine Drive's glittering boulevard was the backdrop for their last act must have added to the drama – ­ perhaps the spot even held sentimental value.After all, lovebirds canoodling along the seafront are as much a fixture here as art deco buildings; and numerous Bollywood flicks have been shot along this iconic stretch.
Next month, the Marine Drive promenade (Kennedy Sea Face) turns 100. A stout lamp post, near the Pransukhlal Mafatlal Hindu Swimming Bath Trust, announces the upcoming anniversary in stone. "Kennedy Sea-Face commenced 18th December, 1915," it reads. "Completed 1920."
Though reclamation of the entire stretch was still decades away, this anniversary marks the creation of a "permanent and powerful" wall – 20ft above beach level – extending 4,750ft from Chowpatty to Marine Lines. It replaced a flimsy cribwork, which was constantly "beaten and broken" by the heavy monsoon, explains a TOI article dated March 17th, 1916. The report includes a description of the Syke's steam pile driver a machine that held both “novelty“ and “charm“ for passersby and which drove 16ft-long concrete piles with sharp iron points into the ground to create the wall's foundation.
The 1915 project also included a beautification drive as Kennedy Sea Face's unkempt appearance was considered a "black spot on the reputation of the city". In order to make the most of Bombay's natural waterfront, an 80ft-wide promenade was planned, which the government hoped to continue along the entire stretch after reclamation. In 2006, the same promenade had to be restored because it was leaking, overrun with hawkers and had fallen into disrepair.
The Backbay reclamation scheme, which envisaged continuing the seafront promenade to Cuffe Parade, was started in 1919. But bad planning, inadequate dredging and corruption allegations led to a truncated stretch of just 16.6 acres. Of the total 1500 acres planned, only about 440 acres was actually reclaimed.
Part of the problem was that the scheme was marketed as a means to decongest poorer sections of the city but the new sea-facing apartment blocks were clearly designed for wealthy residents.
Lawyer Khurshed Framji Nariman wrote articles lambasting the reclamation plan titled "Lloyd's folly" and "Buchanan's blunder" after the governor and the engineer in charge. When an enquiry led by him and Manu Subedar unearthed discrepancies, "the government chose to stop the reclamation," explains Commander Mohan Narayan, the former curator of the Maritime History Society.
"Initially, what was reclaimed was from Chowpatty to Sachivalaya and parts of Navy Nagar.Then in the 1960s, they reclaimed two more parcels of land including Nariman Point and Cuffe Parade.“
By the 1920s and '30s, the Sir JJ College of Architecture was churning out Indian architects, who were eager to break away from the trappings of the Raj. They began designing Marine Drive's art deco stretch with stucco fronts and curving balconies – a far cry from the Indo-Saracenic and Gothic styles that dotted the city's Southern edge.
Today, this precinct has been nominated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it boasts both neo-Gothic structures from the nineteenth century and buildings in the twentieth-century art deco style.
Initially, however, landlords struggled to find "high-class tenants" willing to rent out these posh apartments. But as partition approached, wealthy Hindu families from Pakistan began relocating to the city and they flocked to Marine Drive. Even today, it houses the city's wealthiest residents – one former resident and early morning runner recalls hearing people ask on the promenade, "Aaje, Reliance nu bhaw su chhe? (Today, what is the price of Reliance shares?)"
Inevitably, it developed a reputation as the city's most iconic stretch with horse-drawn Victorias becoming a common trope in romantic songs and its broad roads the backdrop of filmy car chases.It was here that actor Amitabh Bachchan spent one of his first nights in the city and actress Suraiya threw Dev Anand's ring into the sea after their affair ended.
For Atul Kumar, who grew up in Mumbai and has now lived on Marine Drive for 12 years, it has always held a special charm. "It is aspirational. It represented Bollywood. It represented modern India," he says.