Now Available ONLY in Tiong Bahru

I was browsing through a book on Chinatown and some pictures inside the book caught my attention.

At a glance, I thought this was Tiong Bahru

Initially, I thought the book has expanded the area of coverage to Tiong Bahru, since Tiong Bahru is not too far from Chinatown.

On reading the content, I realised that there were some S.I.T. ART DECO flats that once stood in the heart of the Chinatown area!

These Art Deco flats were built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) in 1938 and could be found around the corners of Smith Street and Trengganu Street. The Kempetai used these flats during the Occupation years.

This 1938 SIT flat along New Bridge Road has been demolished in 1975 to make way for the Chinatown Complex. The complex was built to consolidate all the street hawkers that operated in that area.

As these flats were demolished in 1975 to make way for the Chinatown complex, I suppose many of the post 65ers probably do not know, let alone remember that these buildings existed.

Vestiges of old SIT flats fast disappearing

Junction of Smith Street & Trengganu Street BEFORE 1975

Junction of Smith Street & Trengganu Street AFTER 1975
Collection of Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts,
Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

By the way, The "Art Deco" period occurred roughly between the two World Wars, or from 1920 to 1939. For more information on Art Deco, please visit Wikipedia

The "Seng Poh Road" Divider

There is an error in the current issue of the Home and Decor magazine. They have erroneously tagged the transacted prices for HDB in the Tiong Bahru Estate as Conserved flats. And to make it worse, the magazine mentioned me and my website. (Hello!? Were you working under pressure?)

Home and Decor did ask me to provide the prices of the Pre-War flats but I told them I only have the HDB transacted prices in my website. As for the Pre-War section, there are no public records of them in either the HDB or URA website. We gotta find out from the valuers or do a search on them....with cost. (I wonder why these information are not readily available).

Anyway, to "right" the wrong, I hope to be crystal clear this time around in explaining where the HDBs are and where the conserved ones are located.

Seng Poh Road (highlighted in PINK) is the road that separated the 2. I hope the picture I have provided below would clarifies this once and for all.

Low Kim Pong (1837 – 1909)

Low Kim Pong
Collection of Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts,
Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore

Kim Pong Road, within the Tiong Bahru Estate, was named after philanthropist Low Kim Pong (1837 – 1909).

Born in 1837 in his native Zhangzhou, Fujian province, he came to Singapore in 1858. He started as a small time businessman and went on to set up a medical shop, Chop Ban San and later Chop Hock Nam, which eventually became one of the largest Chinese druggist stores. He also dealt in private banking. Committed to social services, he was a member of the Chinese Advisory Board, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and the Royal Society of Arts.

A devout Buddhist, he established the Siong Lim Temple in Kim Keat Road in 1902. (Siong Lim Temple is the common Hokkien or Fukien name of the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery (Chinese: 莲山双林寺), literally Twin Grove of the Lotus Mountain Temple)

At the age of 60, Kim Pong had a dream where he saw a golden light rising from the west over the sea (the west being symbolic of Buddhism which originated in India, and is west of China). He took the dream to be an omen, and went to the coast the next day. At dusk, he met a unusual Hokkien family arriving by boat.

The entire family had taken Buddhist vows and were on their way home to Fujian after a pilgrimage to Sri Lanka. Low, moved by their devotion, tried to persuade them to stay in Singapore and spread the faith. He promised to build a temple for their use. The head of that family, Xian Hui, eventually became Siong Lim's first abbot.

Trading Ladles for Pens

click on image to enlarge

Singapore's Next Big Hot Spot : Tiong Bahru

Hotel unfinished but nine in 10 rooms taken

The Straits Times
Sep 1, 2007

Demand for Link Hotel rooms even before official opening highlights room crunch
By Tania Tan

IT IS barely finished, but already, nine in 10 rooms at the Link Hotel have been taken.
There is still some way to go before its official opening next month and the second block is still being refurbished, but the hotel's guests are just glad to have rooms to lay down their heads at night.

Of the 150 rooms now available in the Tiong Bahru Road hotel, converted from the old Singapore Improvement Trust flats, 130 have been let out.

The demand for these rooms, priced at between $260 and $600 a night, kicked in even before the hotel's soft opening in mid-July, and it has consistently filled its rooms since then.
This thirst for rooms is just a sign of the boom times for hotels.

The hotel's executive assistant manager James Ting said travel agents were already calling him in June to secure rooms for their clients.

'There was definitely a big demand. The travel agents needed rooms,' he said.
And no wonder. July saw a record-breaking 951,000 visitors vying for the just over 36,000 hotel rooms available here.

Mr Ting, noting an increasing number of guests from India and China, said: 'They travel within Asia because it's familiar territory, and cheaper than Europe or America, so there's bigger demand now.'

Industry players have already been warning of a room crunch.

Mr Robert Khoo, who heads the National Association of Travel Agents Singapore, has in fact gone as far as to say that the shortage in rooms could put a dampener on growth in tourist arrivals.

The Singapore Tourism Board has said it is working with the Urban Redevelopment Authority to monitor the supply of hotel rooms.

Since last August, contracts for nine hotel sites, which should yield about 3,100 rooms, have been awarded, among them, the Link Hotel.

And with next year's Formula One races expected to draw some 80,000 to 90,000 more revellers here, the room shortage situation is beginning to look acute.

Yesterday, the Minister of Trade & Industry Lim Hng Kiang said that the Government was aware of the situation and was 'looking at it'.

The agencies would release land, and with room rates going up, there would be more interest from developers, he said.
taniat@sph.com.sg

Si Kar Teng

Jalan Membina (Opposite Zhangde Pri Sch)

Kim Tian Road (Next to Regency Suite)

Was it a coincidence or was it an attempt by HDB to provide residents with subtle hints of this area's original identity?

These modern Si Kar Tengs are found around the Kim Tian Place area. Even though these structures had been there for more than 10 years, I did not give it much thought until I realised the significance these pavilions had for this area.

I bet not many residents here knew about this also. The pavilions looked ordinary and there is nothing there to associate these pavilions to the origins of this area.

Maybe no one likes to remember that this was once a CHINESE cemetery and so one one talks about it. But the truth was this was a major Chinese cemetery in the 19th century and many pavilions were erected on the graves back then. Those pavilions were used as a shelter against the scorching sun when the descendants of the deceased came to pay their respects during the annual “Qing Ming” festival. As all the pavilions were erected with 4 pillars, so that was how this area was referred to as SI KAR TENG.

No one call this place SI KAR TENG anymore. I last time I heard it was probably in the early eighties. But my Dad's generation will still have vivid memories of this place as he told me he could see the coffins sticking out of the eroded slopes when he was much much younger.

I think I would have freaked out big time if I ever saw those sticking around.......remember....OLD OVER SIZED CHINESE coffins.....not the modern sleek designed type with MP3 players and built in aircon.