As a child, I often passed through MacKenzie Road, a street that my father would use as a means to get to Kampong Java Road on our way to our home in Toa Payoh. What I remember most of the street is the area where Rex Cinema is where there were back lanes of food stalls, and the bus depot which always caught my attention. My parents sometimes stopped by, visiting the back lanes for chendol and Indian Rojak. There was some nice Indian Muslim and Malay food as well. My mother sometimes would pick up goreng pisang there and of course the delicious Rex curry puffs from a coffee shop in the area.
Back lane next to Rex - which was once be filled with food stalls.
Back lane across Rex - which was once be filled with food stalls.
The original cinema was opened in 1946 by the Shaw Brothers and ceased operations in 1983. The building then housed the Fuji ice skating rink at the end of the 1980s and early part of the 1990s, and was also used as a church at some point. Rex is of course one of the five iconic cinemas featured in a stamp set “Cinema Theatres of Yesteryear” issued by Singpost in 2009, being one of two still used as cinemas. It saw its rebirth as a cinema sometime last year, screening mainly Indian movies – with the help of two enterprising businessmen. I don’t think I patronised the cinema much as I only can recall one occasion on which I accompanied some older neighbours for a movie there, having visited one of the Malay food stalls in the back lane across the road for lunch.
Rex Cinema - opened in 1946 was used as an ice-skating rink and a church before being reborn as a cinema in 2009.
The reborn Rex Cinema now screens Indian movies.
Shop along MacKenzie Road where the Selera Rex curry puffs are found.
The area around Rex was also interesting to me. On Selegie Road – we could see the tallest school building in Singapore, all ten storeys of it, which belonged to Selegie School. Being used to walking up to classrooms from Assembly class by class in rows of two, I often wondered how pupils could do that with the lifts. Next to the school building was Selegie House – a complex of HDB blocks of flats with shops and restaurants below – passing by, I always noticed the sign at the foot of the block closer to Selegie School with the words “Gomez Curry”. Gomez was known for some of the hottest curries around Singapore. My parents mentioned that Gomez had moved there from nearby Sophia Road where he had first set up shop – operating out of a car garage, with a long table from which he sold his curries!
The ten storey former Selegie School building as seen along Selegie Road.
Selegie House - I used to watch out for the "Gomez Curry" sign at the foot of one of the blocks.
Closer to the junction with Rochor Canal and Bukit Timah Roads, opposite Mackenzie Road, there was of course Albert Street, where supposedly some of the best food in Singapore could be found. The stretch joining Selegie Road is now a pedestrian mall. On the opposite side at the junction with Bukit Timah Road, there is the very distinctive façade of the Ellison building, with its domes on the roof, believed to have been built for a Jewish lady named Ellsion in 1924. The roof was reportedly where Colonial governors would watch the races at the neaby Race Course. From the vantage point of the bus I took home during my secondary schools, I would often observe the going-ons at the shops at the stretch of the building along Selegie Road – there was a little shop that sold magazines that operated out of a little unit next to a restaurant, with items displayed on a wooden rack fronting the shop, as well as on shelves in the narrow passage. I remember that there would usually be a bunch of bananas on the stem that hanging outside, from which customers would pluck bananas off the stem to purchase them from the shopkeeper.
Ellison Building as seen from the junction of Rochor Canal and Selegie Roads.
One of the domes atop the Ellison Building.
There were also a couple of Indian vegetarian restaurants there – I remember noticing the wooden counter at the entrance of the Sri Vijaya Restaurant and the display opposite it which would be filled with Indian sweets and candies … what always attracted my attention was the brightly coloured coconut candy, similar to the very sweet tasting ones that a Sikh neighbour would make with condensed milk during the Deepavali celebrations, stacked high in the display cabinet.
Cubes of brightly coloured coconut candy - one of the things I observed from the bus.
Feedback and comments