More than 130 years since the Stuart Hogg Market was set up in 1874, it's rebuilding time again here. The bricks (of which the circular set up is just one take) are lined up to construct a new underground shopping complex - below the original gothic structure on Linday Street.
Welcome to New Market, as all Calcuttans call it. The then shairman of the Calcutta Corporation, Sir Stuart Hogg, may have inaugurated the market as a Whites-only preserve, but modern-day Calcuttans (very few Whites left here now!) have no hesitation in adopting it as their own. New Market now occupies the whole of Lindsay Street, stretching from Chowringhee Avenue out front, to Free School Street which flanks it. It is, in essence, a great big jamboree that sells and buys anything and everything, and one of Calcutta Traffic Police's worst nightmares!
Notable joints at New Market, which have been around for eons: Strawberry for childrens clothes, and yes, my mum was a regular there at one point of time; Nahoum's Confectionary, which makes the yummiest Easter fare and cinnamon bread; Badshah, which is one of the buzzwords for Calcutta-style rolls, Globe Cinema, which has been around for decades and is still as seedy as ever; and New Empire cinema, which has renovated itself to include a Domino's Pizza and a Barista outlet on the ground floor. Sadly enough, that other old movie hall in the vicinity, Lighthouse, which used to be one of the few good halls to screen English movies, could not follow New Empire's modernisation suit and is closed down now. :(
O, and yes, they built that awful montrosity called Sreeram Arcade with its fake Greek statue and Corinthian pillars right opposite New Empire. In a way, it was one of the first 'malls' in Calcutta - and in that respect, a trendsetter. We used to frequent the softy ice cream shop on the ground floor, when we were there at New Empire for a movie during the college years. :)
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