Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Headquarters

Across the road from Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, on a wedge of land where Dadabhai Naoroji Road swings into Mahapalika Marg, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation headquarters answers the terminus stone for stone.

• It is the building Mumbai's civic government has run from since the 1890s, and the crossroads it anchors is one of the grandest in the country: two vast Gothic piles facing each other over a river of taxis, buses and hurrying commuters, with the Corporation's dome rising roughly 78 metres above the junction and visible from far down the street.
• The design was by Frederick William Stevens, architect of the terminus opposite, and the building was completed in 1893.
• Stevens turned an awkward triangular site to his advantage, splaying the plan into wings that follow the two roads and setting the entrance and tower on the sharp corner where they meet.
• The vocabulary is Venetian Gothic — pointed arches, banded stonework, slender colonnettes, gabled dormers — softened by the Indo-Saracenic details then coming into fashion in Bombay.
• Above the main gable stands the winged figure that carries the city's old motto, Urbs Prima in Indis, first city of India; below it, the arcades, balconies and carved brackets repay a slow look, ideally with a long lens.
• This is a working office rather than a museum.
• Staff and citizens with business at the public counters pass through the gates on weekdays, but there is no walk-in visitor entry; the Corporation has at times opened the interior to small, pre-arranged guided heritage walks on weekends, but these do not always run, so plan the stop as an exterior one.
• The best angles are from the footpaths and traffic islands in front of the terminus, where the whole facade and dome fit in a single frame; early morning is calmest, and the hour before sunset warms the basalt and sandstone.
• Security staff are present, as at any government building — stay on the public footpath, avoid photographing gates and personnel, and you will have no trouble.
• Most visitors fold the stop into a Fort heritage walk continuing south past Crawford Market, Horniman Circle and the Asiatic Society steps.
• For food, this corner of the city is among the easier ones to eat vegetarian in, though it is not uniformly so — Mumbai's pavements mix vegetarian and non-vegetarian stalls side by side, so read the board before you order.
• Fort's long-running Udupi-style restaurants serve idli, dosa, uttapam and filter coffee from breakfast to late evening; pick one that clearly states pure-veg at the door.
• Fifteen minutes north, the Gujarati and Marwari thali houses of Kalbadevi and Bhuleshwar do unlimited vegetarian thalis at lunch, and the farsan counters in between sell khaman, dhokla and fresh mithai — ask about onion and garlic if you eat Jain, and confirm the kitchen is fully vegetarian before you sit down.