On a November night in 2015, hundreds of workers sweated it out for 18 hours to pull down a 136-year-old structure — the Hancock Bridge, one of Mumbai’s oldest infrastructure icons. It was dismantled brick by brick, along with its steel spans, after a structural audit by the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) deemed it unfit.

The bridge was named after Colonel HF Hancock, a British Army civil engineer and president of the Bombay Municipal Corporation in the 1870s. During his tenure, Hancock played a key role in the city’s town planning and the construction of roads and bridges. However, 10 years after its demolition, the bridge remains only half done.

Originally, the BMC planned a new, wider bridge to accommodate the increasing vehicular density.…