SOURCE::::ARTICLE BY V.SRIRAM ..HISTORIAN …
MOUNT ROAD CONTINUES TO BE THE HEART OF CHENNAI EVEN TODAY…..ONE SHOULD KNOW ABOUT THE HISTORY OF THIS GRAND OLD ROAD ..
THAT IS WHY ,INFORMATION , I READ ,IS BEING SHARED WITH YOU THRO MY SITE TODAY…
Natarajan
This principal artery got its name because it connected the Fort to St. Thomas Mount. Its northern end had the official residence of the Governor, called Government House, from the 1740s till 1947. By 1803, it had a lovely Banqueting Hall attached to it. In 2009, it was decided that the new Assembly and Secretariat would be built here. Government House was demolished, but Banqueting Hall (renamed Rajaji Hall in the 1950s) has survived.
All the posh retail establishments of the city had their home here. P Orr & Sons with its heritage building is one such. Another was Spencer’s, founded in 1863. It became one of the largest departmental store chains in Asia, with over 60 branches all over the country and running over 300 restaurants in railway stations from Peshawar to Trivandrum. Spencer’s cigars were Winston Churchill’s favourite! In 1985, Spencer’s historic showroom was gutted in a fire and later demolished. In its place came Spencer’s Plaza, the city’s first mall. Another retailer of the medical variety was WE Smith’s set up in 1868. Smith’s headquarters was Kardyl Building, built in the 1870s, in a style described as “Indo-Saracenic run riot”. Subsequently it became an LIC property, but faces an uncertain future.
If Madras is today known as the Detroit of India, Mount Road saw the beginnings. The pioneer was Simpson, founded in 1840 as a coach-builder, later becoming a car dealer. Simpson later took to manufacturing and today still runs its factory on Mount Road, assembling diesel engines. Other old names associated with cars in this road are Addisons and Speed-A-Way, both like Simpson, now a part of Amalgamations. Even Ashok Leyland began on Mount Road, assembling Austin cars in workshops to the rear of Reliance Motors.
Not far from Amalgamations offices but fittingly on the opposite side are the workshops of rival TVS. Beginning as bus operators in Madurai they later graduated to automobile servicing by taking over Madras Auto Services (MAS), whose handsome art-deco office stands in the midst of other TVS offices on Mount Road. MAS was founded by A.K. Ramachandra Iyer, the owner of Midland Theatre and who first brought Coca Cola and Parker pens to India. Ramachandra Iyer had a leopard for a pet, which terrified passersby. That was in the 1930s. A few years later came Ellis R. Dungan, the American film-maker who had a passion for directing Tamil films. He lived at the Ambassador Hotel (now replaced by the Indian Overseas Bank) on Mount Road and kept a tiger cub as his pet. This too ran about on one memorable occasion before being shunted off to the zoo. Today it is hard to imagine that wild animals could once roam around Mount Road.
The Madras Mail (founded 1868) and the Swadesamitran (1882), which boasted of national poet Subramania Bharati as a sub-editor, are newspapers that once operated from Mount Road but have since closed shop. But The Hindu, (1878) operates from a wonderful art-deco edifice. A cul-de-sac off Mount Road is Club House Road, once leading to The Madras Club, founded in 1832 as a whites-only club! When the Club moved, Indian Express bought the property. The paper later shifted to Ambattur and the old Club House was demolished to make way for another swanky mall. Mount Road continues to remain home to other historic clubs – The Cosmopolitan, founded in 1873, to accommodate Indians and Europeans and the Suguna Vilasa Sabha (1891), catering to theatre lovers.
The first hotel to come up on Mount Road was D’Angellis, which began business in 1906 and later became Bosotto’s, a name better known today in confectionery. The Connemara catered to the upper-class. For the middle-class were the Udipi hotels, the first being Udipi Krishna Vilas, founded by K Krishna Rao, who later began the Woodlands chain. Krishna Vilas no longer survives, but the Udipi and Woodlands names are strong. The non-vegetarians had Buhari’s, Bilal and Coronation Durbar. The former was known for its Chicken 65, so named because it was the 65th item on the menu!
Music was an integral part of Mount Road. P Orr sold gramophone records as did AV Meyyappa Chettiar’s Saraswathi Stores. Another old name associated with music on Mount Road is Musee Musicals, beginning life as Misquith’s in 1842. Today it specialises in the sale of music instruments and conducts examinations on behalf of Trinity College of London. Its premises were once elephant stables!
Roughly midway on Mount Road stood Gemini Studios owned by movie-mogul S.S. Vasan, remembered even today for blockbusters such as Chandralekha. Gemini is long-gone but another of Vasan’s enterprises, the magazine Ananda Vikatan continues on this road. Several theatres stood here, the old and historic ones such as The Elphinstone (remembered more for its soda fountain and Jaffar’s Ice Cream), The Globe, Plaza and Wellington now mere memories with office blocks in their place. The country’s first multiplex was also here, housing the theatres Safire, Blue Diamond and Emerald, all now demolished. A few theatres such as Shanti and the Devi multiplex survive.
India’s oldest book seller – Higginbotham’s, is also on Mount Road. It has been in the book trade since 1844, though the present building dates back to only 1904. Handicrafts have their presence too on this road. Poompuhar, Government of Tamil Nadu’s outlet is located in handsome Indo-Saracenic premises here as is the Khadi Gramudyog Bhawan. More functional is the showroom of Victoria Technical Institute, which dates back to the 1870s and specialises in handicrafts too. Another Indo-Saracenic premises which is home to many handicraft shops is Agurchund Mansions, the first building in Madras to rise to 100 feet.
Religion has its space too on Mount Road. The dargah of Hazrat Moosa Shah Qadiri, the Thousand Lights Mosque and the Christ Church cater to the needs of the faithful.
LIC’s headquarters on Mount Road was the city’s first multi-storeyed building. It continues to remain a landmark of the city. Other high rises of early vintage are Tarapore Towers…
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