History
In the 1870s Mrs. Annie Monk opened her boarding house at numbers 13, 14 and 15 Chowringhee. In the meantime, Arathoon Stephen, Armenian from Isfahan had arrived in Calcutta and proceeded to make his fortune in the jewellery business. By the early 20th century he had put together a sizeable fortune and had purchased numbers 16 and 17 Chowringhee. Soon he purchased Mrs. Monk's boarding house and number 18 Chowringhee as well, and proceeded to developc all the properties together into the hotel that came to be known as the Grand Hotel. The Grand Hotel had humble beginnings as Mrs. Monte's Boarding House at 13, Chowringhee Street. Acquired by the real-estate baron Arrathoon Stephen, it turned into a 3-story 500-room hotel. Acquired by hotelier Mohan Singh Oberoi in 1938, it became the Oberoi Grand.
The hotel got a major lift during World War II when about 4000 soldiers were billeted there, and would party regularly. Events like the U.S. Marines' Ball at the hotel remind visitors of such times.
Read more about this topic: Grand Hotel (Calcutta)
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“... that there is no other way,
That the history of creation proceeds according to
Stringent laws, and that things
Do get done in this way, but never the things
We set out to accomplish and wanted so desperately
To see come into being.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and torturous executions, the unrelenting vindictiveness, with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the Word of God. It is a history of wickedness that has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.”
—Thomas Paine (1737–1809)
“Modern Western thought will pass into history and be incorporated in it, will have its influence and its place, just as our body will pass into the composition of grass, of sheep, of cutlets, and of men. We do not like that kind of immortality, but what is to be done about it?”
—Alexander Herzen (1812–1870)