Pettah, Sri Lanka

The Pettah Market also called Manning Market is an open market in the suburb of Pettah in the city of Colombo, Sri Lanka.The entrance to the Pettah Market is marked formally by a tall monument in the centre of a roundabout, known as the Khan Clock Tower which was built by the family of Framjee Bhickajee Khan, an eminent Parsi family from Bombay who used to have substantial business interests in the country and who also owned the Colombo Oil Mills. The Colombo Old Town Hall & Museum, which was built by the prominent Muslim Arasi Marikar Wapchie Marikar, is located at Kayman's Gate, so named because the Dutch used to stock crocodiles at Beira Lake to prevent their slaves from escaping. Today the building acts as a post office on the ground floor, and as a museum on the upper floor. Outside, there is an exhibit of old steam engines. Most of the businesses in Pettah are dominated by Muslim who specialize in trading of goods and the Tamil people who have migrated from India traders who specialize in gold and jewelry shops. At the end of pettah is sea street which is Sri Lanka s gold market where people all around Sri Lanka come to purchase jewellery . It is a long street of jewellery shops with hundreds of shops next to one another. There are also some jewellery shops in main street gaspa junction. The most recognizable building in the Pettah market is the candy-striped Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque (also known as The Red Mosque) which was built in 1909.

Jami-Ul-Alfar Mosque (Sinhala: කොලඹ කොටුව රතු පල්ලිය, romanized: Kolomba Kotuwa Rathu Palliya, Tamil: மஸ்ஜிதுல் ஜாமிஉல் அஃபார் அல்லது சம்மாங்கோடு பள்ளிவாசல், romanized: Sammankodu Pallivasal, (known colloquially as the Samman Kottu Palli, Rathu Palliya, Red Masjid or the Red Mosque) is a historic mosque in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It is located on Second Cross Street in Pettah. The mosque is one of the oldest mosques in Colombo and a popular tourist site in the city.

The Fort railway station bombing was a suicide bombing of a commuter train while it was stopped at the Fort railway station, the main station in Colombo, Sri Lanka, on February 3, 2008. The bombing killed 12 civilians and injured more than 100. Killed in the attack were eight school children of D. S. Senanayake College's baseball team and their coach/teacher-in-charge. The government said that the attack was carried out by a female suicide bomber, belonging to LTTE, who got down from a train and exploded during rush hour on Platform 3.Secretary of Defence Gotabaya Rajapaksa directed the Criminal Investigation Department to investigate the bombing which led to the arrest of two suspects alongside explosives hidden in Colombo and the discovery of small business premises run by a LTTE cell. The cell leader had left the country after the bombing.

Fort railway station is a major rail hub in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The station is served by Sri Lanka Railways, with many inter-city and commuter trains entering each day. Fort Station is the main rail gateway to central Colombo; it is the terminus of most intercity trains in the country.

The Gaffoor Building is a prominent four-storey wedge-shaped building located on the corner Sir Baron Jayatilaka Mawatha and Leyden Bastian Street, Colombo Fort. The building was built for Noordeen Hajiar Abdul Gaffoor, one of the country's pioneer jewellers and gem stone traders. Gaffoor established N. D. H. Abdul Gaffoor & Sons (Export of Gems, Pearls, & Jewelry, Import of Diamonds) at the Bristol Hotel in Colombo in 1894. He was one of a few merchants who received exclusive permission to board ships in the Colombo harbour to sell gems and jewellery. In 1901 Gaffoor was granted the privilege of exhibiting pearls, diamonds, rubies and sapphires and art works to the Prince and Princess of Wales during their Royal visit. He took part in a number of world exhibitions including, the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904, All Ceylon Exhibition in 1912, the British Empire Exhibition in 1924 and the Philadelphia World Fair in 1925, all of which further enhanced his and his company's reputation. His younger brother, N. H. M. Abdul Cader, was one of the Muslim representatives on the Legislative Council, serving between 1917 and 1930.

Kayman's Gate (Sinhala: කයිමන් දොරකඩ, Kaiman Dorakada) was an entrance to the former Colombo Fort located at the foot of the Wolvendaal Hill in the Pettah district of Colombo, Sri Lanka. A historic free-standing bell tower still stands at the site, now at the intersection of Main and 4th Cross Streets.

Attack on Colombo Harbour was a suicide attack carried out by six Black Sea Tigers of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) on Colombo Harbour, which is the primary commercial port in Sri Lanka.

St. Peter's Church (Sinhala:ශාන්ත පීතර දේවස්ථානය Santha Pithara Devasthanaya) is one of the oldest continuously functioning churches in Colombo, Sri Lanka. It is located on Church Street in Colombo Fort, on the northern side of the Grand Oriental Hotel.

Colombo Central electoral district was an electoral district of Sri Lanka between August 1947 and February 1989. The district was named after the city of Colombo in Colombo District, Western Province. The district was one of three multi-member constituencies, with three members, the others were Balangoda and Kadugannawa. was a three-member constituency. The 1978 Constitution of Sri Lanka introduced the proportional representation electoral system for electing members of Parliament. The existing 160 mainly single-member electoral districts were replaced with 22 multi-member electoral districts. Colombo Central electoral district was replaced by the Colombo multi-member electoral district at the 1989 general elections, the first under the PR system, though Colombo Central continues to be a polling division of the multi-member electoral district.

The One is a tri-tower US$650 million mixed-use development project in Colombo, Sri Lanka, estimated to be the 10th largest of its kind in the world. It comprises the Ritz-Carlton Residences, The JW Marriott hotel and The One Residences.The 80-floor Ritz-Carlton Residences - Colombo, having already completed 33 floors as of August 2019, will be the first of the three buildings to be completed by December 2021. These freehold residences will be serviced and managed by Marriott International, the owning company of The Ritz-Carlton hotels. The 77-floor JW Marriott hotel building is scheduled for completion in December 2023, as well. The tower will house the country's first JW Marriott hotel. Projected to be the tallest building in South Asia upon completion in 2027, The One Residences tower will comprise 92 floors (reaching 376m in height), and offer residential, business and leisure facilities.

The Colombo central bus station bombing was the car bombing of the central bus terminal of Colombo carried out on April 21, 1987, in Pettah, Colombo, Sri Lanka. The 80-pound (36 kg) bomb killed at least 113 people and left a 10-foot (3 m) crater in the ground. The New York Times estimated 200 people had been injured.The bombing, which was chosen specifically to land on the time of the day in order to harm as many people as possible, produced an enormous explosion that could be heard ten miles away. Six buses were trapped in the attack, causing numerous passengers to die in the fire as their buses burned. Heavy rainfall delayed rescue workers from arriving to the scene at time. Heaps of victims, including old people and children lay on the ground in agony before they were received by authorities.The Bank of Ceylon was also heavily damaged during the attack.

Lloyd's Building is a prominent five-storey 19th century building located on Sir Baron Jayatilaka Mawatha (formerly Prince Street), Colombo Fort. The building was constructed in 1908 and originally named the 'Freudenberg Building'. It was designed by Edward Skinner and constructed by Clifford Lake and Company.Initially, the main occupant of the building was Freudenberg and Company, an import and export company. Freudenberg and Company was established on 1 July 1873 by Philipp Freudenberg, initially as a coffee trading company but it went onto expand into banking, imports and exports, oil milling, as well as being the agency for a number of German shipping companies, including Norddeutscher Lloyd and the Deutsche Ost-Africa Linie Steamship Company. Freudenberg also served as the Imperial German Consul to Ceylon from 1876 to 1906. By 1917 several floors of the building were leased out to Colombo Apothecaries Company Ltd, Shanghai Life Insurance Company, Morrison and Bell, Standard Oil Company, C. W. Mackie and Company, Clark Young and Company, Vacuum Oil Company and the Consul for the United States of America. In 1918 it was purchased by Aitken Spence (the sole agent of Lloyd's of London in Ceylon) and made it the company's headquarters, renaming it the Lloyd's Building.In 1933, the joint owners of the building, Ian Woodford Aitken, Henry Seymour Jeaffreson, Basil Walter Cuthbert Leefe and Walter Edward Moncrieff Paterson, sold the building to Ceylon and General Properties Ltd. In 1950 ownership of the building was transferred to Badrawathie Fernando Estate Ltd and subsequently in 1957 to United Ceylon Insurance Company Ltd.In 2009 the Central Bank of Sri Lanka purchased the building, to address the needs of the bank's growing office. The renovated building was officially opened on 1 June 2011 by Gotabaya Rajapaksa, Secretary to the Ministry of Defence and Urban Development, and Ajith Nivard Cabraal, Governor of the Central Bank. This building signifies British architectural heritage of the late 19th century. The richly decorated conference room, elegant marble corridors, classical motifs, quaint woodwork and attractive exterior design of the building symbolize commercial heyday of early 20th century in Sri Lanka.