The grandly-planned street-scape for Luz Church Road – wide pavements, central pavement median, displays of heritage spots of Luz and Mylapore, special lighting and street furniture – is now history.
Some Mylaporeans challenged the idea, especially the central median plan and Chennai Corporation dropped the plan the next day, leaving no space for other people to debate the whole project.
Today, the wide pavements on either side of the road are being hijacked by hawkers.
Some spots remain.
And one such spot on the north pavement, opposite Amrutanjan and next to Nallis, this is being designed – it will hold up a neighbourhood map and photos of local heritage and have street furniture. Work by contractors of the civic body has begun.
Architect Kavitha Selvaraj who designed the Luz Church Road re-design project hopes local residents can further enrich this spot. “People can line the wall with potted plants, for example,” she suggests.
As an extension of this streetscape spot on this road, Kavitha hopes to redesign the walls that wrap the local TANGEDCO and BSNL telephone exchange offices that flank Nageswara Rao Park and the street leading to Our Lady of Light Church, Luz.
Just now, one corner is a open urinal and some parts of the rear wall has BSNL’s promos painted on it.
“Can we use simple murals to showcase local heritage on these walls on both sides?”, asks Kavitha.
To experiment the idea, her colleagues have designed a ‘mayil’ ( peacock) mural image on the wall on the edge of the BSNL office fronting the park’s main gate.
“If we can convince BSNL and others who use these walls and get Corporation to fund murals, we can change the streetscape here,” says Kavitha.
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