A three kilometre curve of Art Deco apartment blocks and cinemas above a promenade and tetrapod sea wall, from Nariman Point to Chowpatty.
What Marine Drive looks like
A six lane road curves for three kilometres along the Arabian Sea, from at the southern end to in the north. Streetlights run the length of the curve and come on together after dark. The lit curve is called the Queen's Necklace. A paved promenade runs beside the water, backed by a low stone parapet and a wall of concrete tetrapods that breaks the waves.
An unbroken run of Art Deco apartment blocks faces the promenade on the inland side, five to seven storeys in cream and pastel stucco, with curved corner balconies and cement chajjas shading the windows. They form part of a 94-building UNESCO World Heritage Site that also takes in the Victorian Gothic buildings of Fort and Oval Maidan. Ground floors hold shops, restaurants and a handful of cinemas. The near Churchgate has an entrance partly faced in red Agra sandstone against the cream stucco of the rest of the building.
stands on the corner at Veer Nariman Road, its stucco painted with a muted rust colored band above the ground floor restaurant. is a short walk north. It still has its original raised lettering set into a white boundary wall, with a small UNESCO plaque beside it. Both keep their curved balconies unaltered above street level.
Shot in Marine Drive
The 2009 film Wake Up Sid used the promenade for the photography scene set to its song Iktaara. The 2004 film Dhoom filmed a motorbike chase along the same curve, using the real road rather than a set built elsewhere.
Wake Up Sid and Dhoom
The same curve of promenade and road carries a quiet photography scene in one film and a motorbike chase in the other.
Wake Up Sid, 2009
The photography scene set to the song Iktaara was filmed on this stretch of the promenade, with the sea wall and the curve of buildings behind the actors. The scene uses the wide paved walkway and parapet rather than the road itself.
Dhoom, 2004
The chase sends a motorbike down the curve of the promenade road, with the sea wall on one side and the row of Art Deco buildings on the other. The production used the real six lane road rather than a closed set.
Ocean Drive's Streamline Moderne hotels have the same curved Art Deco balconies, porthole windows and pastel stucco as Marine Drive, built within the same decade facing open water. The scale is close too, five and six storey blocks set back behind a low parapet and a strip of open ground toward the beach. Miami's blocks are shorter and brighter than Marine Drive's mile long curve, so a tight two or three building frame holds the match better than a wide pan. The palm trees and beach sand along Ocean Drive need to stay out of frame for a South Mumbai read. Try searching curved Art Deco balconies now.
Rothschild Boulevard in Tel Aviv, Israel
Rothschild Boulevard's white modernist apartment blocks went up in the same 1930s wave as Marine Drive's ensemble, both raised by architects trained in Europe's new materials of reinforced concrete and smooth stucco. The proportions read close in a mid shot, three to five storeys over a shaded ground floor. Tel Aviv's buildings favor flat Bauhaus facades over Marine Drive's curved corners and nautical trim, so a frame that includes a balcony's curve gives it away. The boulevard's central tree line is wider than anything on Marine Drive and needs cropping out. Try searching white modernist apartment blocks now.
The Malecón curves along the sea behind a low wall in the same way Marine Drive does, with low apartment blocks facing straight onto the water. Its facades run neoclassical and art nouveau as often as Art Deco, so the match is in the shape of the promenade rather than one building style. Havana's buildings are visibly salt worn, with peeling paint and exposed plaster that Marine Drive's maintained stucco does not have, so a close facade shot breaks the match faster than a wide one. Keep American cars and Havana's own street furniture out of frame. Try searching curves along the sea now.
.jpg)
