“In 1871 Madras had plenty of room for expansion within the limits of the municipal boundaries, and large areas of what was technically the 'town of Madras' must have presented an entirely rural appearance. In the possession of these extensive and largely undeveloped tracts Madras has enjoyed a great advantage over other Indian cities such as Calcutta or Bombay (especially Bombay) where the obstacles to lateral extension have forced a vertical rather than horizontal development. Until comparatively recently, Madras could be accurately described as a one-storied city, and if its immense distances created transport problems, they at least delivered the city from 'sky-scaling' tendencies and the huddled dreariness of the Bombay 'chawl'.” - C.W. Ranson, 1938

On June 29, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa inaugurated via video conference the first phase of the Chennai Metro, a modern manifestation of the city's four century-old tryst with “immense distances”. Commuters can now cover the 10-km distance from Alandur to Koyambedu at a cost of Rs 40, among the steepest Metro fares in the country.

While the “sky-scaling” tendencies of Mumbai have not (yet) found equivalent expression in the urban form of Chennai, they have a hopeful future in the economics of public transport. The “huddled dreariness of the Bombay chawl” may yet find its place in south India after all – in the daily commute of the lower middle class, whose financial status does not allow the luxury of paying Rs 4 per kilometre.

Madras Transit is an urban portrait collection featuring 25 colour photographs from 10,000 ft above sea level. Accompanying each image is a record of air pollution levels on the corresponding day, as measured by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board.


Venetian Vadapalani
February 2015
SO2 - 21 ug / m3
NO2 - 28 ug / m3
RSPM - 68 ug / m3



“The dust of Madras rises from the laterite, a ferruginous earth of which the roads are made. The laterite is beaten down with water, and binds into a hard, smooth surface that is very pleasant to drive over. The constant wear of cartwheels and the pounding of hoofs, equine and bovine, reduces it in time to the finest powder, so fine that it resembles an ochre paint of Venetian red tint ready ground for mixing. It permeates everything, and penetrates through clothing to the very skin. It stains white material with which it comes in contact, just as powdered paint would stain it. Walking over such dust is impossible for a lady who would wear light garments and keep them spotless.  As for the smells, they are indescribable.” – On the Coromandel Coast
Page 61-62
Mrs FE Penny
1908


Madras Club
June 2015
SO2 - 13 ug / m3
NO2 - 19 ug / m3
RSPM - 31 ug / m3



“Madras is well said to be 'a city of magnificent distances.'  Not only are the roads long, but the private drives up to the houses are a considerable length.  The Mowbray Road, running parallel with the old Mount Road, is bordered with some fine banyans.  The branches interlace overhead and form a long aisle of wood and foliage.  It is beautiful in all its aspects: in the early morning, when the mist is rising and the blue smoke of the wood-fires hangs like a curtain of delicate gauze over the still vegetation ; in the broad rays of the noonday sun, when every leaf glistens with reflected sunlight; at sunset, when horizontal shafts of gold pierce the western side of the road and touch the grey stems of the trees; and even at night, when the full moon throws a lacework of patterns upon the roadway.  The road ends abruptly at the entrance to the grounds of the Adyar Club, losing itself in the crossway called Chamier's Road.

The compound of the Adyar Club slopes down to the Adyar River – one of those smooth, still backwaters, like the Cooum, that begins as a watercourse, and spreads out into broad reaches. It is a natural boundary to the suburbs of Madras on the south, and is unpolluted by drainage.”
 - On the Coromandel Coast
Page 67-68
Mrs FE Penny
1908


The Island
April 2015
SO2 - 14 ug / m3
NO2 - 18 ug / m3
RSPM - 85 ug / m3



“Good dressing goes a long way towards giving dignity to a woman; good bridging does the same for a river. The Cooum is spanned by no fewer than ten bridges between Chetput and the sea. Nine of them are of stone and worthy of a Presidency town. The tenth is by no means ugly, but being of iron it is less picturesque.  It is on the marina, where it carries the road across the mouth of Cooum.” – On the Coromandel Coast
Page 79-80
Mrs FE Penny
1908


Triplicane Assemblies 
July 2015
SO2 - 16 ug / m3
NO2 - 23 ug / m3
RSPM - 150 ug / m3



“Between Georgetown and Mylapore is Triplicane, the Mohammedan quarter of Madras. Through the centre of the suburb runs a wide street, which is said to have been laid out by the French in the seventeenth century during their occupation for a few years of Mylapore. The houses in Triplicane are of the same character as those in the back streets of Georgetown, insignificant in appearance and not more than two storeys in height. Their occupants are dhirzis, small shopkeepers, and dealers in wares from the north of India – the silks and stains of Indian make, embroidery, and gold thread.” – On the Coromandel Coast
Page 128-129
Mrs FE Penny
1908


Kapaleeshwarar Temple 
June 2015
SO2 - 15 ug / m3
NO2 - 20 ug / m3
RSPM - 65 ug / m3



“Mylapore is an important place in Vaishnava, Saiva, and Jaina tradition and the Vaishnava Saint Peyalwar is connected in popular tradition with a sacred well in the place. It is the favourite residential quarter of wealthy Indians, including a number of high officials and prosperous Advocates. The beautiful Car Streets running round the temple and the ornamental tank to the west of it are lined with substantial houses, while Luz Road leading from the Cutcherry Street to the Luz Church and beyond to Mowbray's Road, is lined with fine bungalow-residences, being in fact the West end of Hindu Madras.” – The Official Handbook of the Corporation of Madras
Page 73
Ed. FE James
1933


Madras Port 
April 2015
SO2 - 13 ug / m3
NO2 - 17 ug / m3
RSPM - 65 ug / m3



“Madras possesses no natural harbour and the present artificial construction has been described by its creator, Sir Francis Spring, as 'a challenge flaunted in the face of nature'. An attempt was made in 1862 to meet the 'serious disadvantage of the absence of any natural harbour at a port where the surf is continual', but the construction of a screw-pile pier. In 1876 work was begun on a harbour sufficiently large 'to hold nine steamers from 3,000 to 7,000 tons' and when it was nearing completion in 1881 a devastating cyclone washed away half a mile of the breakwaters, threw the two top courses of concrete blocks into the harbour, burled over two of the Titan cranes used on the works, lowered and spread out the rubble base of the breakwaters, and washed away one and a half miles of construction railway.  Undeterred by this disaster the engineers, after consultation with 'a committee of English experts' , returned to the fray. In 1884 building was begun again and in 1896 a harbour 'on practically the original design' was completed.  It was 'just two walls, shaped like the jaws of pincers, running out into the sea', with the entrance, 500 feet in width, facing eastwards. But nature had another weapon in reserve with which to meet the 'challenge' – less dramatic than the cyclone, but exceedingly troublesome. Surf-driven sand accumulated from the south and silted up the harbour entrance, and ti became necessary to close the eastern gateway, and a new entrance was made in the north-east corner of the harbour and protected by a breakwater which projected on the sea-side to the north of this new harbour mouth.  This arrangement has proved satisfactory up to the present.” – A City in Transition
Page 18-19
CW Ranson
1938


Kathipara Junction 
April 2015
SO2 - 16 ug / m3
NO2 - 20 ug / m3
RSPM - 60 ug / m3



“The electrification of the South Indian Line for a distance of eighteen miles outside Madras city is a new enterprise which is likely to have an increasing effect on the development of the city.  A number of new stations have been erected in connection with the electric train service and this suburban track serves an area within the city and on its outskirts which is capable of considerable residential development.  The electrified line strikes westward through the city from First Line Beach, passing through the residential area of Egmore, and then turns almost due south, skirting the edge of the recent town extension area of Mambalam and thence through Saidapet, St. Thomas' Mount to Tambaram.  The tendency of recent years for the 'greater Madras' area to develop rapidly on the southern side of the city is likely to be still further accelerated by this new provision of cheap and speedy transport.” – A City in Transition
Page 18
CW Ranson
1938


Georgetown Grid
April 2015
SO2 - 14 ug / m3
NO2 - 18 ug / m3
RSPM - 85 ug / m3



“The total area of the city is 29.396 square miles. At the centre of the base of this rough semi-circle is For St. George. Its ancient military glory is largely departed, and though solid bastions still stand as reminder of more stirring times, the Fort today contains only a small detachment of troops. It provides, however, a home for the Secretariat of the Government of Madras, and thus remains the head-quarters of the Madras Presidency. Around the Fort is a belt of underpopulated territory most of which has been reserved the use of the military authorities, including on the south-west, the Island – a large gract of open land surrounded by two arms of the river Cooum, which runs through the city in a series of wide loops to enter the sea immediately to the south of Fort St. George. Immediately outside this zone, which surrounds the Fort and separates it from the city proper, lie the most densely populated areas of Madras, and beyond those areas an outer semi-circular fringe of what may be roughly described as suburban areas. The irregular distribution of the city's population is largely accounted for by the fact that madras is made up of three or four distinct urban units and many little villages – the whole held loosely together by a web of communications which radiate from Fort St. George outwards towards the circumference with, of course, many intersecting roads and streets.” – A City in Transition
Page 14-15
CW Ranson
1938


King Institute
June 2015
SO2 - 13 ug / m3
NO2 - 19 ug / m3
RSPM - 31 ug / m3



“Old Madras!  What a multitude of associations are called up by the simple words; what curious pictures of the past flash before our eyes.  Those who are old themselves will recall the days of their youth; the good old times of Elliot, of Munro, or of Lushington, when Hotels and Clubs were not, but when boundless hospitality, aristocratic exclusiveness, choice scandal, and occasional duels were the order of the day.  But our present object would rather be to recall Madras in an age long antecedent to these comparatively tranquil times. We would endeavour to picture Madras as it was some two centuries ago; when Members of Council rode about in bullock bandies, and the guards of the President were armed with bows and arrows, swords and shields; when gentlemen wore large hose, “peasecod bellied” doublets, preposterous breeches, and hats with conical crowns and bunches of feathers; when the ladies, very few in number, wore long waisted stomachers and powerfully starched ruffs; when the Fort was nothing more than a fortified Factory, in which the Factors and Merchants bought and sold, gave their orders, and made their payments, just like any merchant firms of modern date; when all took their meals together, attended daily prayers, and lived like a little brotherhood, who were all kept under by a strict discipline, and who, but for the attractions of burnt wine, punch, native beauty, and occasional quarrels, may be said to have lived as sober and God fearing lives in this Presidency, as were led by their brethren in Leadenhall Street or Cheapside.” – Madras in the Olden Time
Page 1-2
JT Wheeler
1861


Mount Road
April 2015
SO2 - 16 ug / m3
NO2 - 21 ug / m3
RSPM - 89 ug / m3



“The only other place for the meeting of European residents at that time was the Mount Road. It was “smooth as a bowling-green, and planted on each side with banyan and yellow tulip trees.” It was then the fashion for all the gentlemen and ladies of Madras “to repair in their gayest equipages to the Mount Road, and after, driving furiously along, they loiter round and round the Cenotaph” - to the memory of Lord Cornwallis-” for an hour, partly for exercise, and partly for the opportunity of flirting and displaying their fine clothes, after which they go home, to meet again every day in the year.” – Memories of Madras
Page 266
Sir Charles Lawson
1905


Marmelong Movement
April 2015
SO2 - 20 ug / m3
NO2 - 23 ug / m3
RSPM - 121 ug / m3



“In 1804 the [Marmelong] Bridge wanted widening and strengthening.  It had been originally built for the accommodation of foot-passengers and small country carts. But during the war with Tippoo it had frequently been used by the Company for the passage of troops and heavy artillery in preference to the more laborious road through the river bed and ford. The Vestry was asked to do the alteration, but refused on the ground that their trust said nothing about rebuilding, but on repairing.” – Fort St. George Madras
Page 70
Mrs Frank Penny
1900


Adambakkam Lake 
February 2015
SO2 - 21 ug / m3
NO2 - 25 ug / m3
RSPM - 70 ug / m3



“Electric Traffic Controllers – Electric traffic controllers were introduced to cope with the ever-increasing traffic in the City.  At present, there are two controllers, one at the Bodyguard junction. These were designed by the Corporation Electrical Engineer and manufactured and erected at the cost of the Corporation. These are worked every evening between 6 and 10 by the Police officials. A similar controller on an improved method for use at Round Thana, Mount Road, is being manufactured.” – The Official Handbook of the Corporation of Madras
Page 143
Ed FE James
1933

Madras Transit, in association with ARTISANS', will be on exhibit at The Folly, Amethyst, in Chennai from August 22 to August 30, 2015.