The balcony on the fourth floor of the Esplanade Mansion in Mumbai’s Kala Ghoda area collapsed on Sunday evening, crushing a taxi. However, the taxi driver, who was not inside the vehicle at the time, escaped unhurt, The Hindu reported.
An unidentified official from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s Disaster Management Unit said the road near the structure had been cordoned off in case more debris fell on the street. He said the police were at the spot.
The Esplanade Mansion, earlier known as Watson’s Hotel, is one of the world’s oldest habitable cast iron buildings. The Maharashtra Housing and Area Development Authority had declared the building a dilapidated and unsafe structure a few years ago, but repairs had not yet commenced. The building has nearly 100 tenants, many of them lawyers.
“Since 2004, it is listed among the 100 most endangered monuments of the world and has been on the watch list of the World Monument Fund,” conservation architect Abha Narain Lambah said. “There is an urgent need to draw up a mechanism through which such spectacular structures can be saved.”
Once a luxury hotel, the building was constructed in the 1860s and named after its owner, John Watson. It was the first place in India to screen the cinematograph in 1896, The Hindu said.
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