Park Street is where Kolkata has been letting its hair down for more than seven decades, dining at the restaurants that line the street, tapping feet to live music and savouring its carnival ambience and celebratory mood during Christmas and New Year. Its glitter and spirit have always been a contrast to the bustle and scramble of the rest of the city. Park Street, the happy and glowing side of the City of Joy, has withstood challenges from restaurant clusters that have sprung up across south and east Kolkata over the last two decades.
Park Street remains Kolkata’s party hub, continuing to attract the young and the old, the free-spirited and the tradition bound to its restaurants, pubs and bars that have changed slower than the city itself. Despite a few additions and losses, the street has held on to its hallowed status of being the street that never sleeps.
It is not merely a dining destination, as it is popularly perceived to be. There’s a lot more to Park Street—its grand architecture and its age-old institutions. Park Street-Camac Street has figured in the topfive high street destinations in India and ranked higher than fancied locations like Connaught Place in Delhi, Lokhandwala Market in Mumbai, Commercial Street in Bengaluru and Anna Nagar in Chennai. The fifth position in the India Real Estate Vision 2047 report reconfirms the ranking in Think India Think Retail 2023 published earlier in the year. Only four high streets are placed higher: MG Road in Bengaluru, Somajiguda in Hyderabad, Linking Road in Mumbai and South Extension I & II in Delhi.
But what sets Park Street apart from the rest is its enduring popularity for over a century. A high street even in the early 20th century, it remains just as popular in 2023, having retained much of its architectural character while reinventing itself over time. “A high street is an image. Park Street in Kolkata is one such. It is an enduring image of organised retail, brands, restaurants, roadside eateries and more. Park Street is an eclectic mix, one that has something to offer at different price ranges. It is everything to everybody. Nobody is disappointed,” explained business and brand strategy expert Harish Bijoor.
Architect and urban designer Monica Khosla Bhargava, who helmed the Society for Park Street Rejuvenation Kolkata project, said the charm of Park Street was beginning to fade in 2012 when the society was formed. “The popular perception about Park Street was that it is a dining destination. When we carried out the survey, we discovered that beyond the restaurant patrons, there were students studying in various institutions and coaching centres along Park Street who did not hang out there. The Park Street festival was created to attract the young. Youthful brands have since come in and made Park Street into a happening place with coffee shops, lounges and nightclubs,” she recounted.
What also makes high street stores in Park Street unique, says Knight Frank India director (east) Abhijit Das, is their large size. “It is difficult to find shops of this size in other high street locations. But that also means high rentals,” he said. The rental in Park Street-Camac Street is Rs 300-Rs 450 per sq ft.
Sushil Mohta, eastern region chairman of Shopping Centres Association of India and president of Credai West Bengal, said the high rentals, coupled with lack of new retail space, could prove a challenge. “Malls offer what Park Street does and more in locations that are convenient without challenges of parking or facing unfavourable weather conditions,” he said. Nitin Kothari, who owns the iconic Park Street restaurants Mocambo and Peter Cat, said, “What Champs Elysees is to Paris, Fifth Avenue is to New York, Park Street is to Kolkata. ”
It was at Trincas—originally a confectionery that later turned into a fine dining restaurant with live music—that Usha Uthup had first made her mark as a crooner. Other famous Trincas performers include Biddu, Tina Charles, Benni Rozario and Eve. “In 1969, an 18-year-old Usha Uthup made her debut here. It was the golden era of music on Park Street and Usha had been preceded by Biddu. With 80% of the multinational corporations being headquartered in Kolkata and 60% of the Anglo-Indian population concentrated here, the city’s fondness and patronage for good music was not surprising. And Trincas was known for the entertainment that it served,” said owner Anand Puri.
Besides being the party street since pre-Independence times, attracting the young and the old to its restaurants, pubs and bars, Park Street also represents the city’s heritage through its grand architecture and age-old institutions
The road used to be a hangout joint for the city’s affluent and fashionable till the Seventies. But the class barrier was broken over the next three decades and now Park Street is as much a middle-class haunt as any other place in Kolkata, said Kothari.
“The Metro rail changed the character of Park Street from the mid-Eighties. With easy accessibility provided by a comfortable and cheap mode of transport, the city started exploring Park Street and discovered that it was not as forbiddingly expensive to spend an evening here that it was believed to be. We have consciously ensured that we remain affordable for the middle-class for they are the majority of our clients,” added Kothari.
