Matching stone office blocks with arched openings and a whitewashed Art Deco petrol pump line a planned grid of streets near the docks.
What Ballard Estate looks like
Stone office blocks built between 1914 and 1918 line a planned grid of streets near the old customs docks. Facades are symmetrical, in Malad stone or sandstone, with arched openings at street level and a repeating cornice line from block to block. Trees run along the kerbs, and a four storey block fills the corner at the in the same stone and arched window style.
A freestanding Art Deco petrol station stands mid block on Shiv Sagar Ram Gulam Marg, whitewashed with a stepped canopy tower and garage bays on either side reading Washing and Oil Change. The stone office blocks behind it keep the same cornice line down the street.
On the same street, occupies a ground floor unit behind an arched entrance, its painted signage and a sidewalk menu board facing the pavement. Further along, the takes the corner at Walchand Hirachand Road, a four storey block with iron balconies and a rounded corner turret above the street sign. A block over on N Morarji Road, Darabshaw House has its name in raised lettering above a rounded stone corner.
Toward the water, a single arched stone gatehouse marks the old entrance to Ballard Pier, now a small maritime museum behind iron railings. Close by, a carved sandstone memorial with a winged lion stands among the trees at a road junction. Ground floors elsewhere hold shipping offices, a textile showroom and a photography studio, with most upper floors still used as offices.
Shot in Ballard Estate
Two addresses on the same street have separately appeared on screen. Britannia & Co's counter is where Tezaab shot in 1988, and the Grand Hotel's exterior appears behind a car chase in the Netflix series The Bastards of Bollywood.
Tezaab, 1988
The Britannia & Co counter
The 1988 film Tezaab shot a scene at the counter of Britannia & Co. Restaurant owner Boman Kohinoor appears in the shot beside his pet rooster. The cafe's arched entrance and hand painted signage face the street outside. Street View
The Bastards of Bollywood, 2025
The Grand Hotel corner
The 2025 Netflix series The Bastards of Bollywood used the Grand Hotel's exterior in the background of a car chase along Walchand Hirachand Road. The same four storey corner, with its iron balconies and rounded turret, has also appeared behind Saiyaara and Jawan. Street View
Matching stone office blocks with arched ground floors and a repeating cornice line give Ballard Estate's streets a similar period commercial feel to the City of London's own Edwardian rebuilding. Mumbai production houses already book the district as a lower cost stand in for London commercials. Modern shopfront signage needs dressing out. Palm trees and the paler, grey stone of London's own buildings would also give the location away in a wide shot. Try searching Edwardian stone office block now.
The Bund's early stone banks are built in the same Edwardian and Baroque Revival style as Ballard Estate's own office blocks, with matching symmetrical facades and arched ground floors. Both were commercial waterfront districts of the same period. The Bund's buildings run taller and sit directly on the river, so a wide shot should exclude the modern Pudong skyline across the water. Try searching Edwardian bank facades now.
BBD Bagh in Kolkata, West Bengal
BBD Bagh is built in the same era of British commercial stone architecture, with arched openings and columned porticos across its office blocks. Its buildings run grander and more domed than Ballard Estate's plainer four storey blocks, closer to civic monuments than shipping offices. Keep wide shots off the domed General Post Office and the colonnaded Writers' Building, and hold instead on the plainer office blocks around the square for a closer match to Ballard Estate's scale. Try searching grander domed office blocks now.
