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Great Eastern Hotel, Kolkata

Hotel buildings completed in 1841Hotels in KolkataUse British English from April 2013
Great Eastern Entry
Great Eastern Entry

The Great Eastern Hotel (officially The LaLiT Great Eastern Kolkata) is a colonial era hotel in the Indian city of Kolkata (formerly Calcutta). The hotel was established in 1840 or 1841; at a time when Calcutta, the seat of the East India Company, was the most important city in India. Referred to as "the Jewel of the East" in its heyday, Great Eastern Hotel hosted several notable persons visiting the city. After India's independence in 1947, the hotel continued its business and later the state government took over the management. In 2005 it was sold to a private company and was reopened in November 2013 after an extensive renovation.

Excerpt from the Wikipedia article Great Eastern Hotel, Kolkata (License: CC BY-SA 3.0, Authors, Images).

Great Eastern Hotel, Kolkata
Old Court House Street, Kolkata B. B. D. Bagh (Kolkata)

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N 22.5684 ° E 88.3495 °
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The Lalit Great Eastern Kolkata

Old Court House Street
700062 Kolkata, B. B. D. Bagh (Kolkata)
West Bengal, India
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Great Eastern Entry
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Currency Building
Currency Building

The Currency Building is an early 19th-century building in the B. B. D. Bagh (Dalhousie Square) central business district of Kolkata in West Bengal, India. The building was originally built in 1833 to house the Calcutta branch of the Agra Bank. In 1868, it was converted for use by the Office of the Issue and Exchange of Government Currency, an office of the Controller of the Currency under the British Raj. From 1935 until 1937, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) used the building as its first central office. The building remained in use, and was used at one time by the Central Public Works Department (CPWD) as a storehouse. Authorities decided to demolish it in 1994. From 1996 to 1998, the CPWD undertook demolition; but the building was saved from being completely demolished by the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) and the Kolkata Municipal Corporation. In 2003, custodianship passed to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), which renovated the building from 2005 to 2019. On 11 January 2020, Prime Minister Narendra Modi formally dedicated and reopened it as a museum. The Currency Building is a three-story Italianate structure, consisting of floors covered by marble and Chunar sandstone. Its main entrance features a three-part gate made of wrought iron and Venetian windows. The building's central hall, now an open-air courtyard, was formerly topped by three large domes with skylights. During its use as a currency office, the central hall contained the exchange counters for banknotes, gold, silver, and small change. During the building's renovation, the central hall was reorganized into a space for open-air programmes.

Bengal Presidency
Bengal Presidency

The Bengal Presidency, officially the Presidency of Fort William and later Bengal Province, was a subdivision of the British Empire in India. At the height of its territorial jurisdiction, it covered large parts of what is now South Asia and Southeast Asia. Bengal proper covered the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal (present-day Bangladesh and the Indian state of West Bengal). Calcutta, the city which grew around Fort William, was the capital of the Bengal Presidency. For many years, the Governor of Bengal was concurrently the Viceroy of India and Calcutta was the de facto capital of India until 1911. The Bengal Presidency emerged from trading posts established in Mughal Bengal during the reign of Emperor Jahangir in 1612. The East India Company (HEIC), a British monopoly with a Royal Charter, competed with other European companies to gain influence in Bengal. After the decisive overthrow of the Nawab of Bengal in 1757 and the Battle of Buxar in 1764, the HEIC expanded its control over much of the Indian subcontinent. This marked the beginning of Company rule in India, when the HEIC emerged as the most powerful military force in the subcontinent. The British Parliament gradually withdrew the monopoly of the HEIC. By the 1850s, the HEIC struggled with finances. After the Indian Mutiny of 1857, the British government assumed direct administration of India. The Bengal Presidency was re-organized. In the early 20th century, Bengal emerged as a hotbed of the Indian independence movement, as well as the epicenter of the Bengali Renaissance. Bengal was the economic, cultural and educational hub of the British Raj. During the period of proto-industrialization, Bengal significantly contributed directly to the Industrial revolution in Britain, although it was soon overtaken by the Kingdom of Mysore ruled by Tipu Sultan as South Asia's dominant economic power. When Bengal was reorganized, Penang, Singapore and Malacca were separated into the Straits Settlements in 1867. British Burma became a province of India and a later a Crown Colony in itself. Western areas, including the Ceded and Conquered Provinces and The Punjab, were further reorganized. Northeastern areas became Colonial Assam. The Partition of British India in 1947 resulted in Bengal's division on religious grounds.