Bengali Club: Delhi
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The Bengali Club, Delhi
Repairs at Bengali Club begin after 7-year wait
Richi Verma The Times of India Jan 10 2015
Dating back to 1925, the iconic Bengali Club is housed in a heritage building which was built in 1894 and is privately owned. It is located next to Kashmere Gate in a heritage building that awaited restoration between 2008 and 2015. During this time, a supporting pillar of its balcony had collapsed, new cracks had appeared, seepage had worsened and the terrace had been in danger of crashing.
According to sources, the Bengali Club committee was engaged in a court battle with the owners who wanted the club out of their premises. The rent for the space occupied by Bengali Club was raised from Rs 60 per month to Rs 6,000 in 2014
Officials had to overhaul the whole mail hall terrace by removing its plaster and iron girders because the damage was worse than they imagined. “The terrace was literally collapsing. Over time, several additional layers of plaster had been cemented onto the terrace which just added to its weight. We had to remove all those extra layers to get to the iron girders. Once we saw the condition of the iron gir ders--they were all rusted and had obviously lived out their life, these had to be replaced with new iron girders,“ said an official.
Now, their attention has shifted to the library terrace which has wooden beams in place of iron girders. “These beams have decayed completely . We will have to replace most of them. After that, we will put a brick-sandstone and brick-lime aggregate,“ said the official.
