High Street Phoenix chimney to come down, neighbourhood residents protest

MUMBAI: A relic of Phoenix Mills built in 1905 and the city’s once-industrial fabric, the lone standing chimney at High Street Phoenix Mall in Lower Parel is in its last days. Surviving the shift from being part of the textile mill to sitting atop the Fire and Ice club that opened in the premises in 1999, the BMC on August 13 gave preliminary permission to Phoenix Mills Limited to redevelop a portion of the mall into a ground-plus-two-storey shopping centre and demolish the chimney that was coming in the way.
“The chimney’s demolition will be a significant loss for our city’s cultural fabric and history,” said an aggrieved Chetan Kamble, neighbourhood resident and founder of the NGO ChakaChak Dadar. Kamble has written to municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani, demanding that the demolition be stopped.
“The mills of Mumbai are an intrinsic part of the city’s history, the backbone of its industrial past,” he said. “These chimneys, once an integral part of Mumbai’s skyline, stand as the last surviving sentinels telling the story of what our city originally was. They are monuments to the era when Mumbai was known as ‘the Manchester of the East’, their smoke-filled silhouettes dominating Central Mumbai.”
Born and brought up at walking distance of the erstwhile mill, Kamble remembers seeing it through different stages of his life. “When our grandchildren ask about the mills that once defined our city, these chimneys will be all that remain to tell them of our past,” he said. Giving the example of the chimney preserved at Peninsula Towers, which came up on the erstwhile Dawn Mills, Kamble has demanded that the BMC declare all the old mill chimneys as heritage structures.
The Phoenix Mills Limited company first floated its plan to develop Block 5 of the mall in 2021, seeking a preliminary approval from the civic body. It was asked to acquire an NOC from the Mumbai Heritage Conservation Committee, as the chimney was proposed to be demolished.
This was no tough task. In response to the query in April 2022 about heritage properties in the Phoenix Mills compound, the then deputy municipal architect in the heritage wing of the Development Plan department said that no structure on the land fell in the heritage list. Thus, in the subsequent IOD issued by the BMC this August, the NOC for demolishing the chimney was no issue.
“Not all the chimneys of the old mills are heritage structures,” said a BMC official from the building and factory department who did not want to be named, as he is not authorised to talk to the media. “Many chimneys of the old mills have been demolished to make way for new structures, especially as without any maintenance they get dilapidated and pose a hazard to those around.” The officer confirmed that the BMC had approved the latest revised IOD on August 13, adding that a high-rise was also under construction beside the mall.
Architect and urban conservationist Brinda Somaya said the chimney’s prospective demolition was a pity. “These chimneys are the markers of the city’s heritage, and it is unfortunate to see them go down one after another,” she said. “The one at Phoenix Mills contributed to the mall’s success, as its charm lay in the courtyard with the chimney standing tall.”
As part of the Urban Heritage Conservation Committee that had inspected the malls decades ago to salvage whatever could be saved, Somaya recalled that the mill’s chimneys and water bodies were recommended for preservation. “Sadly, it has largely failed,” she said. “Barely a handful of the mill chimneys remain.”
The commercial transformation of Phoenix Mills ushered in the city’s shift away from its past, bringing in eateries, bowling alleys and clubs where once textile machines hummed and chimneys spewed smoke. In a 2020 report by the Girangaon Bachao Andolan and Lokshahi Hakk Sanghatana titled ‘The Murder of the Mills: A Case Study of Phoenix Mills’, author Shekhar Krishnan wrote, “The chimney of the mill towers above the disco, awaiting the day when, in a gesture of cynical irony, the owners of the Bowling Company propose to repaint it to look like a bowling pin.”
Phoenix Mills Limited did not respond to queries for a comment.