Can it happen here?

PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

The Straits Times reported about a rundown five-storey housing block that collapsed in Hung Hom, a district of Kowloon in Hong Kong, yesterday.

Two people have been confirmed dead while at least four others are missing. The residential block is more than 50 years old.

I would have just skimmed through the report if not for the pictures!

I thought the building resembles those privately owned and maintained buildings along Yong Siak Street.

That area is an eye sore of the Tiong Bahru Estate.

The facade is in need of a long overdue repainting job.

There are many electrical wires dangling everywhere ON THE OUTSIDE of the building!

Aren't electrical wires supposed to be keep away from the elements?

And rubbish is not kept in the bins but is left all over the place by some migrant scavenger.

There is this guy with grubby long hair who comes with a lady in a wheelchair in the evenings to scavenge.

I've no problem with the scavenging but am upset with the mess these people leave behind.

I really hope the recent fire along this street will not be forgotten but will be the catalyst for this street to be cleaned up ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Pictures contributed by Jo Turner

I've found a new home!

How my life has changed for the better in a matter of a few days!

On Tuesday, I was abandoned and left to fend for myself along the pathway of Kim Cheng Street and my future looked so hopeless.

Being a kitten and without my mom’s milk, I would have died of dehydration.

Even if I do survive that, I would have been killed by those territorial tom cats in the vicinity.

Thank you Resident Rosemary for going the extra mile of protecting me and making sure I’m well fed and cared for.

You and your family gave me lots of love and care for four wonderful days before passing me over to my new owner on Friday.

I’m happy to have found a new home with 2 other cats to keep me company.

My new owner even brought me to the Vet to get me checked and make sure I’m alright.

Dr Vet told him my blue eyes may even change but my owner loves me just the same.

In fact, he even brainstormed the whole night just to give me a “nicer” name than Ang Moh or Avatar. (Not that I’m upset with that queer name)

If my hearing did not fail me, I’m now known as REI-NA REI-A.

That is such a Purrrrfect name for me.

Okay, a kitten needs many hours of sleep to grow up big strong and healthy.

Good Night & God Bless.

Business Times : In with the old

I thought you might be interested to find out about the 2 Tiong Bahru Hotels that were mentioned in the Business Times Weekend edition today.

________________________________________

Business Times
30 Jan 2010
DESIGN

In with the old
The charm of Singapore's old buildings is attracting more hoteliers to refurbish these premises and give them a new lease on life as boutique accommodation. By Audrey Phoon

IT is ghosts of the past that worry hoteliers most when they convert old buildings into new lodgings - and not the supernatural kind. 'With old buildings, you never know what you are getting into. You find faults you didn't see before, once you start work on them,' says Loh Lik Peng, who owns Hotel 1929 and New Majestic Hotel in the Chinatown area, both of which occupy pre-war structures. On top of that, he adds, engineering is costly and 'a pain', because such buildings have no grid; as a result, there can be no replication in design as every room has different dimensions.

Then there are restrictions on the extent to which the original structures may be modified. Take Wangz Hotel, for instance: the month-old hotel, which occupies a 20-year-old building at Outram Road, is located near an MRT tunnel, so it had to work around a structural load constraint. Says its director, Wang Chang Yuin: 'Our structural engineer had to perform meticulous calculations on both internal and external loading to ensure that we didn't put additional load on the building. The existing facade tiles and internal walls were removed, and lightweight materials, such as the external perforated aluminium cladding, were used instead.'

Still, such hurdles have not stunted the growth of a new boutique-hotel culture - crafted out of mature buildings - here. Over the past few months, several such lodgings have sprung up and more will open within the first half of this year, including a new venture by Mr Loh.

 The magnetic appeal of these projects, which are generally more costly than constructing something from scratch, lies in the fact that they are rich in history, local flavour and charm, says the hotelier. 'There's something about old buildings that really captures my interest. There are layers of history imbued in them, and it's like you're peeling them back when you do your renovations and incorporating them with a new interpretation. I would never look at an empty plot of land and say that,' he says.

 Adds James Ting, general manager of Nostalgia Hotel, a six-month-old business that takes up two heritage shophouses in Tiong Bahru: 'These buildings possess rich historical value. In converting them into new premises, we can preserve a part of Singapore's history, perhaps for the younger generation to appreciate in future. Additionally, through the hotel's architecture and retelling of its history, guests can get an insight into Singapore's story and have a unique experience that is different from the monotony of chain hotels.'

 BT Weekend takes a look at four new-old hotels that form part of the burgeoning boutique accommodation culture here.

 Wanderlust
2 Dickson Road
To open by mid-year

Loh Lik Peng's newest venture Wanderlust combines cutting edge design with fun

 
DICKSON Road is a pretty offbeat location for a trendy hotel, what with the motor workshops, Chinese-style 'beer garden' and coffee shops that line it. But then, owner and lawyer-turned-hotelier Loh Lik Peng has never been one to follow convention. 'Very often, a project is not about the location,' he says. 'It's about falling in love with the building; looking at it and seeing a little gem there. It's not about being near an MRT station; I never look at projects that way.'

 His latest hotel, then, takes up a charming, tiled-front building that was constructed in the 1920s. 'This was the Hong Wen School until the Buddhist Welfare Association took over in the 1970s, when Hong Wen moved to bigger premises,' says Mr Loh. 'Now I guess the association has outgrown it too - they've moved to Toa Payoh.'

 To be called Wanderlust, the 29-room, four-storey establishment will be 'something a little more sophisticated and fun' than the other hotels in the neighbourhood, and it's being designed by cutting-edge creative agencies Phunk Studio, Asylum and fFurious, along with architects DP Architects. Each company is responsible for one floor.

 On the hotel's positioning, Mr Loh says: 'There are very few nice, interesting hotels in Little India, nothing like what we're doing. They're all the budget sort, lacking in imagination and not leveraging on the uniqueness of the area. This is a really authentic part of Singapore, so I thought it'd be nice to do something special.'

 No surprise then, that Wanderlust aims to bat creativity out of the park with visual treats like Asylum-designed bespoke wallpaper printed with modern images of Little India; neon lighting; and heavy play on light and shadow on the various floors. The rooms, to be priced from around $200 to $250 a night, promise to be 'almost like a playground designed as furniture': there's a 'monster room', a 'tree room' and one with a spaceship concept, and all fittings are being custom-made because of the complex shapes needed.Says Mr Loh: 'We're using fibreglass, concrete, steel, plywood ... everything. It's going to be the first hotel of this sort that I'm doing, as in working with this level of complexity.'

 Additionally, the building will house a cantilevered pool on the second storey, as well as a small ground-floor bar and a casual French restaurant helmed by Anthony Yeoh of the Funky Chefs, who does 'good, solid flavours', proclaims Mr Loh.

 Wanderlust's site, says the hotelier, reminds him of Keong Saik, where he opened his first hotel, Hotel 1929, in 2003. 'It was all hotels with hourly rates and brothels back then. In many ways, this area reminds me of that; it's really local and I like that,' he explains. As he sees it, going in early - wedged among those motor workshops and coffee shops - is a good thing. 'You can't help other people coming in and diluting the flavour,' says Mr Loh, 'but for a while, at least, you can capture the magic of an area.'

 The Club 28
Ann Siang Road
To open in April

MORE THAN A BED AND BREAKFAST

The Club, by Harry's Hospitality, takes a historic shophouse that used to house Batey Ads and turns it into a natural extension of Mohan Mulani's core F&B business. 

THOSE not content with just dinner and drinks at Harry's will be glad to know that they can soon do bed and breakfast there as well: come April, the group behind the Harry's chain of restaurant-bars will open a hotel under the newly-established Harry's Hospitality umbrella.

 To be called The Club, the 22-room establishment (rack rate: $400 a night) will also house function rooms plus a couple of F&B outlets that include a tapas restaurant, an outdoor terrace and a rooftop bar - necessary revenue-generating elements in such a small project, says Mohan Mulani, chief executive officer of Harry's Holdings. 'With a boutique hotel of this size, F&B is quite a key component in the business plan. You can't just operate it on room sales alone,' he says, adding that The Club plans to draw 'a good 60 per cent' of its revenue from that channel.

 The project is a natural extension of his core business, he adds. 'While it is a bit of a deviation from opening bars, it really isn't that large of a deviation. And it gives the company a lot more depth also, plus more offerings for the customer.'

 Bed and breakfast aside, what those customers will get is the opportunity to experience a bit of Singapore's history too - The Club will be located in a historic shophouse that, most recently, used to be home to advertising agency Batey. 'It's where the Singapore Girl was born,' says Mr Mulani, referring to the well-known Singapore Airlines campaigns that Batey produced. The area also used to house many remittance centres for the early Chinese immigrants, a fact that the architect Colin Seah of Ministry of Design, which worked on the hotel, played on.

 The entrance, for example, will showcase murals that give a sense of what the place was in the past; there will also be features that hint of this history in the rooms, where the 'modern day nomad and the nomad of yesterday cross paths for a moment'. The other key inspiration in The Club's design is Singapore's colonial past, which in one instance takes shape in the form of a larger-than-life Raffles statue standing with his head in the clouds.Artists who have been involved in other Harry's projects have also been tapped to contribute to the hotel - artworks from Romanian Valeriu Sepi (who did a mural in Harry's Boat Quay outlet) and Singaporean Wyn-Lyn Tan, to name a couple, will decorate The Club.

 The hotel's site was selected for two reasons, says Mr Mulani. One, he has a 'soft spot' for the area as he owned a wine bar there for more than a decade, which he had to give up three years ago when the building it was in was bought over. And two, 'I hang around here a lot and I think Ann Siang Road is really heaving and happening again'. Even taking into account competition from the other boutique hotels in the Chinatown area, he is upbeat about the success of The Club. 'With the product that we're creating, I don't think we have a very uphill task, in my humble opinion,' he says.

 Wangz Hotel
231 Outram Road
Tel 6595-1388
http://www.wangzhotel.com/

NEW WORLD, OLD WORLD

The futuristic Wangz Hotel has emerged out of a 20-year-old building on Outram Road, with modern furnishings, a stunning rooftop lounge, spacious rooms and a gleaming aluminium facade. 

AS the saying goes, third time lucky - and so's the case with the 20-year-old building that Wangz Hotel is located in. Originally called Tarng Chern Building, the unique barrel-shaped structure used to house offices and a jewellery shop. Some years later, it was renamed Hope Centre and became home to a student hostel and several non-profit organisations. But it is with its third and latest reincarnation that the building has really been revitalised with a fresh new look and a more permanent purpose.

The 41-room, six-storey hotel is owned by the Wang family, who have been involved in property development (including serviced offices) since the 1990s but had not previously done a hotel before Wangz. 'The idea of opening a boutique hotel had been at the back of our minds, but we hadn't found a suitable property,' says director Wang Chang Yuin.

 When the family was approached about the Outram Road building, however, they took to it immediately. 'We were drawn to the strategic location of the building,' says Mr Wang. 'It is close to the CBD and Orchard Road, and we like its prominent location. We also like the charm of the art deco buildings in the area.' In addition, he adds, the hotel is the tallest building in the immediate vicinity and offers great views of the city skyline, particularly from its rooftop.The decision to develop the site and create 'a modern hotel that would stand out from the nearby art deco buildings' was made in 2007; some two years and $8 million later, Wangz Hotel has emerged from its chrysalis of scaffolding. And what a transformation it has undergone: the original dull tiled facade is now all gleaming perforated aluminium, teased by local architects CPG Consultants into a three-way curve to give the building a 'bulging' effect and a futuristic look, and its interiors are a cocoon for culture. The spacious rooms - priced from about $228 a night, and stuffed with creature comforts such as pillow-top mattresses, iPod docking stations, goosedown duvets and Molton Brown bath amenities - feature artworks by artists such as Hijran Seyidov, a Dubai resident who counts royalty among his clients; Singaporean Anthony Tan, who is known for his nature-themed abstracts; and contemporary South Indian artist P Gnana, whose works are in the Singapore Art Museum collection.

 Apart from studying these aesthetic treats, guests can also have drinks at Halo, the rooftop lounge, dine at in-house restaurant Nectar, or work out in the fully-equipped gym.
Already, the hotel is reporting a 55 to 80 per cent occupancy rate, with most guests coming from Europe, the United States and Australia.'There is a growing market for tourists who specifically go to boutique hotels because of the cosy environment and personalised service they offer,' says Mr Wang. 'Because of this, and given the usually small number of rooms each boutique hotel has, we think demand for such hotels will remain high.'


Nostalgia Hotel
77 Tiong Bahru Road
Tel 6808-1818www.hotelnostalgia.com.sg

A perfectly preserved shophouse forms part of the Nostalgia Hotel on Tiong Bahru Road, decorated with contemporary artwork and old world charm

WITH the warm lighting that spills out of its wooden shutters in the evenings and the comfortable, lived-in buzz that radiates from it, one can easily imagine No 77 Tiong Bahru Road to be a home straight out of the pre-war era. Step inside the perfectly preserved shophouse, however, and a reception area will reveal the truth: the more-than-half-a-century-old building actually forms part of a hotel.

 That homely feel is exactly what owner Cornerstone Link, a mining company based in Indonesia, was looking for when it bought the property from developer Lion Properties Group in September, says the hotel's general manager, James Ting.

 He adds that Nostalgia is positioned to feed the growing demand for such boutique accommodation.

 'Travellers are becoming more savvy and most are looking for a unique experience,' he explains. 'They no longer crave the monotony of luxury chain hotels but are looking for a different environment with character and charm.'The appropriately-named Nostalgia Hotel, then, has 50 rooms (some of which are housed in the heritage shophouse and others in a new extension built over what used to be a bird singing corner) and features design and decor inspired both by Singapore's colonial years as well as the romantic history of the neighbourhood - Tiong Bahru in the past was known as an area where the well-heeled kept their mistresses. It's 'old-world charm with a dash of modernism', as Mr Ting puts it, which translates to lush fabrics, furniture in warm colours, gilded mirrors and chandeliers, set against a backdrop of specially commissioned contemporary artwork by a local artist and other modern touches.

 The rooms, which are priced from about $215 per night, are equipped with cutting-edge conveniences like LCD TVs and iPod docking stations, as well as bath amenities by French designer Pascal Morabito or Chopard, depending on the category of room. Meanwhile, in the Balcony rooms, which are situated in the heritage bit of the hotel and overlook the junction of Tiong Bahru Road and Seng Poh Road, architects AMC Architects International have preserved the original louvered windows, wooden panels and wall artifacts of the original structure.

 The new-old juxtaposition is intended to 'reflect the existent community of Tiong Bahru', a mature estate in a modern age, says Mr Ting. 'We want to echo the cultural and historical values of the area and allow guests to experience the Singapore of yesteryear comfortably; as such, Nostalgia provides accommodation that reflects the essence of Singapore in a luxurious environment.'

 aphoon@sph.com.sg
Copyright © 2010 Singapore Press Holdings Ltd. All rights reserved.

Can we afford to lose more of these buildings?

This building once stood next to Block 28 Tiong Bahru Road (The one with a Post Office). It was demolished a long time ago.

Can we afford to sacrifice more of such buildings in Tiong Bahru?

Are the Tiong Bahru Post War S.I.T. flats worth conserving or should they bow out and make way for modern skyscrapers?

Share your views with us at the following discussion:

SHOULD THE POST WAR S.I.T. flats be CONSERVED or EN-BLOC?

SHOULD THE POST WAR S.I.T. flats be CONSERVED or EN-BLOC?

I've started a discussion at the FACEBOOK site.  Please click here to share your opinions with everyone. Thank you.

G.A.S.P.

Yesterday evening, while I was walking around Tiong Bahru with a tenant, I spotted a pair of ORIGINAL 1930's metal door with the ORIGINAL green stained glass!

It was left along the walkways of Block 57 Eng Hoon Street.

I have cleaned forgotten about it until about 1 hour ago when I spotted it again, still at the same location.

I wonder if the owners are waiting for someone to pick it up to restore or G.A.S.P., throw 'em away.

Mr Owner, if you are reading this and you are gonna throw it away, please GIVE IT TO ME instead.

Thank you.

Notice : Junk Removal Day

Saw this pasted next to my letterbox today and I thought I do some community work tonight.

Here's what the letter is about (With some my own comments in red, LOL):

Dear Residents,

In conjunction with the coming festive season, (Why cannot mention Chinese New Year Hah?  Is this another McDonald's wannabe?) the Town Council will be providing a one-time free bulky items removal services on 30/01/10-31/01/10.

If you need to discard bulky items such as furniture, mattresses or home appliances, please place them at ground floor/void deck (Do we have void decks in Tiong Bahru?) before 4pm of the days.

Our conservancy contractors will dispose them for you.

Thank you.

Wallpaper Magazine (Issue : Nov 08) : Up and Coming

I got this Tiong Bahru story from Sylvia Tan today.

She spotted this story in the Wallpaper Magazine (November 2009 issue)

As the file came in a PDF version and I do not know how to convert PDF files to JPEG files, I'm reproducing the entire article for your reading pleasure.

Here is the excerpts:

By Singaporean standards, the Tiong Bahru estate is an odd duck.

On the surface, the quarter is a charming mix of well-preserved mid-1930s, three-storey buildings and a string of early 1950s art deco-styled flats.

A fading Buddhist temple hugs a street corner, while across the road, raucous hawker stalls dish out succulent roast duck rice and flourescent-lit convenience stalls sell bicycle parts.

Squint a little and this could easily be Singapore 30 years ago, even though the skyscrapers of Raffles Place are just minutes away.

But over the past few years, the quarter's ageing residents and nuclear families have seen an influx of 30-somethings - among them a sizeable gay community.

Attracted by the relatively low property prices and period architecture, architect Ken Wong and his journalist boyfried moved into the estate two years ago.

"This is the only area where heritage apartments don't have purchase restrictions," says Wong, referring to government regulations that usually limit purchases of property to married couples or singletons over 35.

Savvy businesses are responding to this new demographic.

Organic store Yes Natural (#01-27, 58 Seng Poh Road, tel:+65 6227 3280) offers organic treats; while Rice Fields (#01-06, 66 Eng Watt Street, tel:+65 6227 3456) stocks imported European stone, and swanky bathroom sinks and tiles.

At night, Wine Wise (#01-86, 57 Eng Hoon Street, tel:+65 6227 2118) pulls in oenophiles, while Persimmon (#01-07, 50 Tiong Bahru Road, tel: +65 6227 2271) does a mean East-meets-West menu.

"This area is a modern urban village," says local health-care worker Tristan Lim.

"There's a party at someone's place every other weekend."

Welcome to the new Singapore.

Daven Wu.

Uncle, 这个有人的吗?

It was a very hot day to be out walking around this afternoon and I was literally walking from one minimart to another minimart in Tiong Bahru to get my Coke Zero.

Whatever I drank doesn't seems to quench my thirst one bit.

Somehow I ended up in the back lane behind Block 58 Seng Poh Road and the following item caught my eye:

It was LOVE at 1st sight and Love can sometime mess up your head and behaviour.

I knew it was obviously a very silly question to ask Mr Tay but I still went ahead and ask.

"Er, Uncle, 这个有人的吗? (Is this someone's)

Either Mr Tay did not hear me, could not understand my lousy Mandarin or he was just saving me from further embarrassment.

He just went about cutting up some leather to upholster some antique looking chairs which someone is trying to restore, ignoring my presence totally.

Anyway, to make my stupidity worthwhile for everyone, I got a name card of Mr and Mrs Tay.

If you ever needed to restore your old sofa, replace the leather on the leather chairs or anything that has fabric a makeover, you can contact Mr or Mrs Tay.

They had been doing this for many many many years and my uncle was once upon a time their customer when he bought his very 1st Mitsubushi Lancer.

Do you want an "ANG MOH" kitten?

Resident Rosemary found this abandoned kitten along the footpath at Kim Cheng Street.

This kitten is mainly white with just some grey dashes on its body.  It also has a pair of beautiful blue eyes.

Please pass the word around to help this cute kitten locate a great home.

You can contact me at TiongBahruEstate@gmail.com and I will get resident Rosemary to get back to you.

RATS! There is no MISTAKE about it now!

Cute and cuddly RATS from Ikea

Following my blog entry last October about the mistaken identity between the Shrew and the Rats, I had always wanted to “correct” or “qualify” that I did make any claims that there are no RATS in Tiong Bahru and I found the perfect opportunity to do so today….or rather yesterday.

Right after that shrew blog entry, I bumped into Resident Mr & Mrs Joe while I was supervising my kids at the playground at Kim Pong Road.

Mrs Joe said she still doesn’t like those furry, rodent, shrews thingy, despite knowing that they are not RATS.

Immediately, a huge rat half scampered and half hopped across from Block 43 to Block 44 Moh Guan Terrace.

“And that is definitely a RAT!”, I exclaimed sheepishly.

Since Mrs Joe was jittery about RATS, we parted ways very quickly.

Ever since that encounter, I have noticed a pair of them (the rats lah) darting around that vicinity and I suspect they came from the nearby dumpster.

These RATS were probably pushed out by their parent RAT to look for their own homes.

Despite not getting a government “NEAR PARENTS GRANT”, these resourceful rats still managed to settle into some really prime real estate in Tiong Bahru!

I never had a chance to catch them with my camera as I’m always too late  slow and they are long gone when I’m back with my camera.

So I was rather happy that I managed to catch one of them having fun in the sun while I was on my way for an appointment yesterday.

pardon the grainy video as it was taken from my low resolution cellphone

The way the RAT was moving around seems to indicate that it has settled down very well here and is not jittery at all.

It fact, I was quite amazed that it was unaware of my presence until so much later.

I think it is time to make those responsible for the dumpster to clean up the place THOROUGHLY once and for all.

And the NEA must also educate those cat feeders to clean up all those leftovers after the cats are done with it.

Otherwise, the cockroaches and RATS will come out to play after the CATS had their fill.

By the way, I once visited a cockroach infested home in Tiong Bahru!

It was so bad that I could even smell the roaches from the stairways.

The roaches were obviously have a ball there coz the owner goes around collecting rice from “god knows where” and store them in those red plastic bags along the staircase.

She will only bring the rice out to feed the strays in the evenings.

I pity her neighbours! And eventually, it is those foreign workers who are willing to live next to her because they ain’t got any choice.

(By the way that unit is located near a coffeeshop and that may be why I was never thrilled to dine there)

Hit & Run

It was a routine morning for me today.

Peeled myself off my bed and rushed my son to school.

As usual, we always arrive at the school gate just a few minutes shy of the 7:20am cut-off point.

Anyone who arrives after 7:20am will be ushered to a "sleepy heads" corner and listen to what the discipline master has to say.

3 strikes and the bigger sleepy head within the family will need to join junior sleepy head in school to listen in to his discipline master.

So far I've been good and there were no incidents.

As I was walking back home, Resident Anne told me that she saw a car being rear-ended along Kim Pong Road by a Malaysian lorry earlier in the morning at about 7:15am.

She thinks the driver was stopping there to grab a bite at the stalls along Kim Tian Road but sped of when he realised he hit a car.

It happened so fast that she could not record down the number nor take a picture. (Probably too shocked to react)

So if you are reading this and you actually witnessed the accident, please volunteer the information to the poor car owner. (You can post it here or email it to me)

The car owner probably went from sleepy head to disbelief within 3 seconds and another 5 seconds to turn that disbelief into anger.

Illegal advertisers - Think Twice or Thrice before you paste it here!

Finally the media is reporting about those pesky illegal, low class and unsightly advertisements that could be found all over Singapore.

Believe me, you can even find them in supposedly upper class enclave in River Valley!

(I wonder if people driving their Lamborghini around D09 or D10 would stop by a lamp post to see if they can find their next property there)

Anyway, Tiong Bahru has always been plagued by such advertisements and the most recent one was the most "cheapo" one I've seen.

The advertisement was scribbled onto a Singapore Pool's 4D betting slip and pasted all over Block 78, 79 and 80.

Have fun reading the following article. The enforcement agency should be "commended" for issuing so many warnings in 2009.
They were probably sleeping in 2008 and thus look as if they had done a great job last year...but it is a good start nevertheless, so I better not complain so much :-)

______________________________________________

Warnings issued for illegal ads pasted on street infrastructure rise
By Ng Lian Cheong/Hetty Musfirah, Channel NewsAsia
Posted: 12 January 2010 2132 hrs

SINGAPORE : The number of warnings issued for advertisements pasted illegally on street infrastructure went up by more than 10 times last year.

Sixty hundred and thirty-four warnings were issued, compared to just 56 in 2008. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is hoping a paint job will do the trick in curbing the sticky problem.

The columns of a linkway leading to Jurong East MRT station are the first to be painted with what LTA calls "anti-stick paint". Pasting anything using super-glue or even double-sided tape will not work on these columns.

It is part of a trial launched last July. LTA said the anti-stick paint was specially blended and improved based on its requirements. The trial cost about S$4,500.

The LTA said it has proven successful so far. In the last six months, all the columns were free of advertisements.

The project will be extended over a larger area to assess its cost effectiveness and public feedback before being implemented islandwide. Among the locations selected for the more extensive pilot trial are along Geylang Road and Sims Avenue.

With the new paint job on the Jurong East linkway, LTA said it can save about S$5,000 yearly in clean-up efforts.

The number of people who were fined for putting up such illegal advertisement also increased last year. Two hundred and one people were fined in 2008, but in 2009, the figure stood at over 450. First-time offenders were fined S$300 each. - CNA/ms

Notice Board

It has been ages since I looked at the notice boards that are all around the Tiong Bahru Estate.

There is actually useful information for residents to find out about what's going on in the community.

You may want to check out this course on photography fundamentals which will be held on the 17th this month :

Click on the image to enlarge it and contact Barnie if you are keen to join in.

There is also a night shoot on the 31st as well as a Heritage Walkabout on the 7th of February.

Please call the organiser if you are keen to join in.

Before walking away from the notice board, I cannot help but notice that there was a CONFIDENTIAL document that was posted there with all the Resident Committee Volunteer's name, complete with their home addresses.

I've blacked-out the addresses as I think that is really too "CONFIDENTIAL" to be posted here.

Must the addresses be published for everyone to see? 

This may actually deter many from "volunteering" their services.

What do you think?