Colaba Woods

Colaba Woods is a wooded garden of about 31,000 sq m in the Colaba area of South Mumbai, near the President Hotel and about 5 km from CST station. Once a refuse dump on land taken over by the Tata Electric Company in the early 1900s, it now serves as the green lung of Cuffe Parade, with a jogging track, amphitheatre, basketball courts, children's play areas and a readers' corner for street children. It won the Urban Heritage Award in 1989.

Residents commissioned a tree survey in 2015, when the planned Colaba metro station threatened a quarter of the garden. The botanist Dr Chandrashekhar Marathe mapped 803 trees of 99 species, including rare Toona and Koelreuteria and a lychee that bears fruit. Birds, bats and squirrels depend on them. It is open from 7 am to 10 am and 4.30 pm to 8 pm, and photography and collecting plants are not allowed.