On Lt. Col. Mark Wood's map of 1784, the portion of the eastward road from Lal Bazar to what was known for a long time as Circular Road - which ran along the filled-in Mahratta Ditch and is now Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose Road - was shown as Boytaconnah Street, which received its name from the Baithakkana, or "resting place", where merchants formed and dispersed their caravans, sheltered by an old banyan tree, at the road's eastern extremity. Bow Bazar Street has been renamed Bepin Behari Ganguly Street. However, the locality continues to be called Bow Bazar. In keeping with the neighbourhood's earliest name, a road stretching from B.B. Ganguly Street to MG Road is called Baithakkhana Road, as well as the market along the road at the easternmost part of B.B. Ganguly Street being called Baithakkhana Bazar. At the cross roads where Lal Bazar, Bow Bazar, Chitpore Road and Bentinck Street meet was the place of execution, where the pillory was. In 1888, one of the 25 newly organized police section houses was located in Bowbazar.
Geography
Police district
Bowbazar police station is part of the Central division of Kolkata Police. It is located at 13, Kapalitoalla Lane, Kolkata-700012. Taltala Women police station covers all police districts under the jurisdiction of the Central division, i.e. Bowbazar, Burrabazar, Girish Park, Hare Street, Jorasanko, Muchipara, New Market, Taltala and Posta.
and College Street-Nirmal Chandra Street pass through the area from north to south. Bepin Behari Ganguly Street and Dr. Lalit Banerjee Sarani-Khirode Vidya Binode Avenue pass through the area from east to west. Many buses ply along these roads.
Train
and B.B.D Bag railway station are the nearest railway stations of Bowbazar.
Economy
There are, as well, shops dealing in wooden furniture, musical instruments, shoes, seasonal fruits, fresh vegetables and meat, etc. US-Bangla Airlines has its India offices in Bowbazar.
Banga Natyalay, in nearby Pathuriaghata, was the first theatre to print admission cards in Bengali. Traditionally, musical soirées were held in the large private houses of old Kolkata; but there also were some humbler houses that had similar soirées, amongst the latter being the Bowbazar home of a musical family, the Borals. The music maestro Jadu Bhatt, who gave musical lessons to the Tagores, died in Babu Ram Sil Lane, at the abode of the Adhikaris, which is also referred to as the Jhulan Bari. A festival of Indian classical music is still held there each year during Lord Krishna's festival of Jhulan Purnima. Very old sweet shops, associated with the memories of Iswarchandra Vidyasagar and Sir Ashutosh Mukherjee, still exist in Bowbazar.
