What are some of the best kept secrets of Mumbai? (Facts you may not know)

Ref - Discussion in Quora Digest.

1. Bombay has the largest national park in the world located within city limits.

Hardly anybody knows that the Sanjay Gandhi National Park is an unbroken forest tract that covers 104 sq km. Or the fact that within its core areas the park is home to not just the well known leopard, Langur and the Sambhar but also the Indian Flying-fox, Hyenas and four-horned antelopes. The least-known fact though is that the Park authorities are doing a damned good job given the resources they have and in the face of immense real estate greed in the city and the abject apathy and lack of interest of the citizens. The rich flora and fauna of Sanjay Gandhi National Park attracts more than 2 million visitors every year. It is the largest park within a city metropolis limit in the world. Tourists also enjoy visiting the 2400 years old Kanheri caves sculpted out of the rocky cliffs which lie within the park. It is in the centre of the park where an important Buddhist learning centre and pilgrimage site was sculpted by Buddhist monks between 9th and the 1st centuries BCE.

The ancient Kanheri Cave of Sanjay Gandhi National Park, Mumbai

2. Mumbai's Secret Underground Tunnel.

On a totally different note, recently, an underground secret tunnel had been discovered below Mumbai's General Post Office(GPO), which is said to be built by the Britishers as an underground escape passage route leading to the then Bombay Fort, fearing attacks from the Napolean. I don't think a lot of Mumbaikars know about this. In June 2010, a curious query by one of our newspaper’s reporters to a ward boy in St George’s Hospital, Fort, led to the discovery of this best-kept secret: a tunnel which begins underneath it and possibly has outlets at the Gateway of India and Churchgate.

3.What lies under Nariman point, one of the most expensive places in the world is actually debris.

Prior to 1940, the area was part of the Arabian sea. A popular leader of the Congress, Khurshid Nariman (affectionately called Veer Nariman), a Parsi Mumbai Municipal Corporation corporator, proposed to reclaim the area from the sea near Churchgate. To accomplish this task, debris from various parts of the city was dumped here and the shallow sea coast was filled. Reinforced concrete cement was used, of which the imported steel used was obtained from the black market at a higher price due to the World War II.The entire cost was estimated to be 3 lakhs or 300,000 (now 10 crores or 100,000,000) Additional reclamations were carried out in the 1970s. A construction boom in that decade saw this region spurting many commercial high-rises.

This is not Manhattan but Nariman Point, Mumbai the commercial hub city of India

4.The Taj Mahal Hotel, Mumbai

The architect of Taj Mahal hotel committed suicide. When WA Stevens, who designed the Taj Mahal Hotel at Apollo Bunder, finally saw the building he was so appalled that he committed suicide by jumping off the dome. Why? Because it was built back-to-the-front. According to his design, the side that faces the Arabian Sea was actually supposed to face Wellington Circle (now Regal Circle). 

OTHER SECRETS OF MUMBAI AS TOLD BY MUMBAICKERS

5.The artificially most inflated property business of Mumbai
Mumbai's best kept secret is without a doubt its residential property bubble since last several years.
Developers, investors, agents and all profiting from rise in prices have successfully been able to create the idea in the mind of people that housing prices in Mumbai can keep rising indefinitely no matter how high the prices are or how fast they have risen already or whether the prices have gone past affordability or not. So, it is a widespread belief that it is not possible to lose money when buying real estate in Mumbai. However, every market has highs and lows, ups and downs. This is indicated by the fall in real estate sales, rising inventories, the fact that half the flats are being bought by investors and also by low rental yields.

6. The Ulhasnagar Sindhis from Pakistan
After the Partition of India on 15 August 1947, over 100,000 Sindhi refugees from the newly created Pakistan were relocated in the military camps five kilometres from Kalyan in the Bombay metropolitan region. It was converted into a township in 1949, and named Ulhasnagar by the then Governor-General of India, C. Rajagopalachari.

7. The truth of Bombay and Vidarbha The state of Maharashtra wouldn't have existed with Mumbai as its capital had Nehru, Sardar Vallabhai Patel, the RSS, Moraoji Dessai (who later became PM and who was then the CM of Bombay state) had their say. Supported by the Gujrati & Marwari traders who controlled most of the business and workers from South India, the plan was to have a cosmopolitan state of Bombay and a Marathi speaking state of Vidarbha which would include parts of Hyderabad as well.

8. History of the creation of Maharashtra and Gujarat 

It was only due to the efforts of Sanyukta Maharashtra Samiti who strongly lobbied, criticized the ruling class and fought a war similar to independence that the state of Maharastra got created with Mumbai in it in 1960. Not just that, Gujrat was also carved out of the Gujrati speaking part of the state of Bombay.

9. Hutatma Chowk                                                                  

Before that happened, plenty of blood was shed. In January 1960, demonstrators were fired upon by the police at Flora Fountain in the capital city of Mumbai. Flora Fountain was subsequently renamed Hutatma Chowk or "Martyr's Crossroads" in their memory. 105 people died and it was comparable to the much spoken aboutJallianwallah Bagh Massacre by the Britishers in Punjab.

10. The Shiv Sena

1. The Shiv Sena and Bal Thackeray were a byproduct of this. The Sena replaced and represented Marathi rights after the Sanyukta Maharastra Samiti collapsed after creation of the unified Marathi state. Not just that, the Congress actually supported the Sena against a common enemy - the communist and workers unions from Bombay's erstwhile textile mills. Eventually the relationship went sour and the Shiv Sena defeated the Congress in the elections. The rest is known to all.