HYDERABAD: At the age of 88, withstanding the test of time and unmindful of the step-motherly treatment by successive governments, the Mississippi hangar stood tall in Gowliguda, towering over most of the city skyline. But at around 7.30 on Thursday morning, the gigantic Nizam-era structure bit the dust.    

The hangar came from the USA, on special demand from the seventh Nizam Mir Osman Ali Khan. It was made by Butler and Company, USA, specialists in building industrial sheds and hangars. It was imported by sea, as hundreds of disassembled parts. Here, in Gowliguda, it took shape, first, to house the aircraft collection of the Nizams and later, the buses of the Nizam’s Road Transport Department. The hangar was chosen to be the bus shelter as its height allowed parking of double-decker buses, says Reddy from INTACH, Hyderabad.

Successive State governments in independent India made use of the hangar as bus stations, but they seldom did anything to maintain it. On Thursday, barely two hours before a scheduled inspection by the TSRTC MD Sunil Sharma, the structure collapsed. The only casualty was the structure itself, for TSRTC had evacuated the place on June 30, realising it was too dangerous. “We anticipated the fall which is why traffic was diverted last week,” says TSRTC regional manager C Vinod Kumar. “We will now have to dismantle the structure. A new model complex would soon be constructed, on priority basis, to restart the facility,” he added.

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Experts who inspected the hangar thrice last year say the structure could have been saved. “Certain sheets were damaged, but the steel girders were intact. Also, the hangar was brought and assembled here. Hence, the damaged parts could have been easily removed and replaced,” says Anuradha Reddy, who has written a book on the aviation history of Hyderabad.

P Mounica, a 4th year student of architecture who has been studying the structure for the last one year as part of her thesis, also claims it was the lack of will that led to its collapse. “One of Hyderbad’s iconic structures was left to rust. The solution to this was simple: remove the damaged bits and build additional trusses, (a metal framework to hold the structure),” says Mounica. If one bus stand goes, another will come along. But, a towering heritage structure of Hyderabad got relegated to history books, and that’s not coming back.