Chandigarh's Le Corbusier-designed Sec 17 plaza wrinkles with time

Vishal Gulati
Chandigarh, July 23 (IANS) The walkers’ paradise designed by Swiss-French architect Le Corbusier in Chandigarh’s Sector 17 has virtually been lost after shedding its old-world charm.

The shopping marketplace, the pedestrian’s paradise that Corbusier designed on the European pattern, has been witnessing business nosediving since the early 2010s.

Shopkeepers say they lost customers to the air-conditioned Elante Mall and North Country Mall where people love to hang around for hours with a flurry of shopping activities, besides restaurants and bars with a host of entertainment options.

Elante Mall in the Industrial Area Phase 1 and North Country Mall in Mohali have been doing a roaring business in the Tricity -- Chandigarh, Mohali and Panchkula.

A large number of multinational brand outlets have shifted base to the vibrant shopping hubs, another reason for a limited clientele in Sector 17’s marketplace.

The closure of Lyon’s Restaurant with its prime location in Sector 17 is a great miss among the old-timers. They say they have fond memories of yesteryears. While for others, they have been using the eatery as a landmark location for route direction.

Upscale bars and microbreweries elsewhere have left high and dry one of the oldest places, the Gymkhana Pub in Sector 17, one of the most affordable bars in the city.

“Whenever we visit Sector 17’s Plaza, we wish this cinema (Neelam) may come alive in our lifetime. It’s really disgusting to see the deteriorating building with peeling plaster that has fallen on bad days,” said octogenarian and local resident O.N. Gupta, who has many memories attached to this iconic building while pointing towards Neelam Theatre.

“In the era of multiplexes, these single-screen cinemas still hold the old charm of the city. Whether we missed either school or college classes, we straightway headed to this theatre to watch the first-day-first-show of a movie,” he added.

With refurbishing or rebuilding of old single-screen theatres not getting approval from the UT administration, they are awaiting a ‘happy ending’.

The prominent outlets that downed shutters with the winds of change include Kwality restaurant, Blue Ice, Indian Coffee House, Shangrila, Oven Fresh, Anchor Pub, Bhatura King, Deepak Radios and law bookseller Jain General House and Jain Jewellers.

Rajeev Bhatt, the second-generation owner of the famous Lucknow Pan House, told IANS that footfalls in Sector 17 dips drastically during the extreme summer when the customers prefer to shop in air-conditioned shopping malls.

“With the closure or shifting of brand outlets, the shoppers prefer the malls, especially during school vacations as children prefer to hang around eateries,” he added.

With the change in customers’ preferences, Bhatt and his brother have stopped selling pans and cigarettes long ago. They are selling fast food items and shakes now.

Not agreeing that the malls have impacted their sales, Rajiv Chaudhary of English Book Shop, one of the oldest book stores in Sector 17, told IANS that book readers still prefer to read hard copies or physical copies of books instead of e-books.

“There is no impact on our clientele. We are getting clients of all age groups. People love to come to Sector 17 to shop and hang around.”

Added Amrik Singh, a 45-year-old customer from Hoshiarpur in Punjab, “I always prefer to shop in Sector 17 than visiting Elante Mall. Even on a rainy day, I am here.”

Clicking photographs of hawkers roaming with sling bags, another shopper Naresh Sethi, a retired government employee, added, “Despite the Punjab and Haryana High Court's declaring Sector 17 as a no-vendor zone, you can see hawkers here and there again. They return after a gap. Now the authorities prefer to keep their eyes shut, may be due to their political clout.”

However, to bring the smiles back on the faces of shoppers and to restore its glory as a shopping destination, the administration has started a project.

Chandigarh Advisor Dharam Pal at a meeting last month directed the Engineering Department to complete the construction of the fountain, amphitheatre, ambient lighting and projector mapping at the earliest in Sector 17 Plaza.

The Municipal Corporation of Chandigarh was directed to remove the encroachments and keep the area neat and clean on a day-to-day basis by deploying dedicated staff, an official statement said.

He also asked the officials to explore the possibility of allowing the existing food and beverages outlets to make provision for the sitting for 30 people in front of their establishments.

The administration is also looking into the possibility of setting up a regional branch of the National Gallery of Modern Art in the Deputy Commissioner’s office in Sector 17, in coordination with the Union Ministry of Culture.

“All these works are being undertaken by the Chandigarh Administration in order to make Sector 17 more interactive for the public to bring back the glory of Sector 17 Plaza,” added the statement quoting Dharam Pal.

However, frequent visitor and old-timer Balvinder Singh, former principal of Government College for Boys, Sector 11, is upset over the showpiece restoration of Sector 17 Plaza.

“Sector 17 is fast losing its old charm. They are spending crores on upgrading its looks now for months,” the principal of the city’s first college told IANS.

“The floor outside Neelam Theatre has been laid and re-laid many times. A meaningless city map has been carved on the floor. Though work still is going on in a tardy and shoddy manner, the floor has already become uneven and filled with rainwater. Though some bright lights have been put, they show up only ugly spots,” he said.

“If you enter the area behind Neelam Theatre, which has become a ‘chaat-smosa’ selling station, it looks and smells filthy, the whole backside is full of ugly sights; open electric junction, broken pavement and sinking junk with no light at all.

“The other end the road has been re-laid with bumpy tiles and no one knows what purpose they serve. Most shops opposite the Indian Coffee House block are shut for years and give a dingy look. No wonder locals now don’t come to shop here. Only outsiders throng this as a ritual,” he added.

The parking of cars in the pedestrian zone also gives a picture of a mess.

Upset over the newly-constructed 180m tabletop behind the Neelam Theatre that cost nearly Rs 1 crore, wheel-chair bound road safety activist Harman Sidhu said the administration has completely ignored the rules for persons with disabilities.

The three-storey parking lot, constructed at an outlay of Rs 48 crore and opened in 2016, is a picture of neglect as people do not prefer to park  their vehicles there. They are using the old parking lots in front of the shopping complex.

Locals say the administration must initiate steps by converting the old parking area into a bigger Plaza and declare it as a no-vehicle zone.

(Vishal Gulati can be contacted at [email protected])