Where the stork once visited: Prinsep Street (Rochor to Middle Roads)

In taking my stroll through the streets of what once was Singapore’s Jewish Quarter, the Mahallah, I realised that among them, Prinsep Street has probably seen the most dramatic changes since the turn of the last century. Prinsep Street, spelt Princep Street in the days of the Mahallah, was named after a Charles Robert Prinsep, a descendent of a John Prinsep who featured prominently in the British East India Company. Charles Prinsep had own several nutmeg estates in the new colony and one on nearby Mount Sophia that occupied much of the land on which are now the grounds on which the Istana stands. The street is made up of two sections, the first running from Bras Basah Road, by Dhoby Ghaut up to Middle Road, and the second from Middle Road to Rochor Road. The second section is where much of the Mahallah would have been centred on, and is where perhaps the most significant changes have taken place since the early 1900s when it was part of the Mahallah.

The door of the former Salmon's Maternity Home brings some colour to an area with a colourful past.

This was the stretch of the street that perhaps made some notable contributions to healthcare in Singapore and was where the island’s first Maternal and Child Health Clinic was set up in 1923, and where one of the pioneers of private Obstetric and Gynaecological healthcare in Singapore, a Dr. S. R. Salmon had first a practice and subsequently a private maternity hospital, the Salmon’s Maternity Home. Dr. Salmon, a General Practitioner (GP), had along with Professor J. S. English, Singapore’s first Professor of Midwifery and Gynaecology and another GP, Dr. Paglar who established the Paglar Maternity and Nursing Home on which the Parkway East Hospital now stands in Joo Chiat, been attributed with raising the understanding of the need for ante-natal and post-natal care in Singapore.

Prinsep Street has undergone a transformation where there is little left of its forgotten past.

Interestingly the wonderful Art Deco styled building (there is a nice sketch of the building at this blog) that housed Dr. Salmon’s Maternity Home, set up in 1950 on 110 Prinsep Street, still stands, as a reminder of a time when ante-natal and post-natal care was very much in the hands of GPs and midwives, before specialist ante-natal and post-natal care as a norm was established in the 1960s. It is interesting to note that Dr. Salmon’s daughter Dr. Yvonne M. Salmon, had a distinguished career in Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Kandang Kerbau Hospital (KKH) in a career spanning 44 years.

The former Salmon's Maternity Home at 110 Prinsep Street was built in 1950 by Dr. S. R. Salmon..

The Art Deco styled façade of the former Salmon's Maternity Home.

A reminder of what the building was once used as.

Across the street from the former Salmon’s Maternity Home, is another landmark, the very recognisable red brick building at 77 Prinsep Street, which is the Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church, built in 1931. The church has an interesting history, having been established in 1843 as the Malay Chapel to serve the Malay community by Rev. Benjamin Peach Keasberry. The church was subsequently known as the Straits Chinese Church to reflect its growing ministry to the Straits-born Chinese, and was where the Boys’ Brigade movement in Singapore was born. The current church building was designed by SSwan and MacLaren and built in 1931 in place of the old chapel.

The distinctive red brick Prinsep Street Presbyterian Church was built in 1931 on the site of the former Malay Chapel.

The Singapore Life Church at 144 Prinsep Street.

Much of the area that is around the churches and the former maternity home had in the early part of the twentieth century been rather run down and has been renewed, first with the construction in the late 1950s by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) the predecessor to the HDB of the blocks of flats that include the low rise blocks that are now used by the SMU for student housing, and several high rise blocks that included Albert House and Rochor House on the plots of land between Prinsep and Short Streets leading up to Rochor Road which has since been torn down, partly replaced by the interesting looking (and award winning!) LaSalle College of the Arts building with its clean black façade of aluminium and granite and open interior spaces, between a new road McNally Road, named after the founder of LaSalle College, Brother Joseph McNally, and the pedestrian mall that was the former Albert Street. The building also sits where there was once a street called Prinsep Court and before that (up to the 1950s) Veerappa Chitty Lane. The plot from Albert Street up to Rochor Road across from Sim Lim Square, which came up in 1987, is being developed into the Rochor MRT station.

The award winning LaSalle College Building with its black façade of aluminium and granite was built in 2007 and located at 1 McNally Street off Prinsep Street.

LaSalle College of the Arts as seen from Prinsep Street, stands on the grounds of what were SIT flats that were built as part of a renewal of the district in the late 1950s.

The low rise SIT flats which are now used by the SMU for student housing.

The pedestrian mall that was Albert Street between LaSalle College and a construction site for the new Rochor MRT station where Rochor House once stood.

The SIT built Rochor House was constructed in the late 1950s along with Albert House and a few low rise blocks of flats bewteen Prinsep Street and Short Street (Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Rochor_House,_Aug_06.JPG).

Revisiting the Ramayana

My introduction to the Ramayana was a brief and uninformed one all those years back when as a five-year old child being cared for by my maternal grandmother I would sit with her through whatever kept her amused her on the television set. Besides the doses of P. Ramlee and Pontianak movies which seemed to be regular features on the few television stations that existed back then. Another programme that would keep her entertained was the Kelantanese shadow puppet play which was based on the tales passed down through the generations based on stories from the Ramayana. It was only later perhaps, when an introduction to the history of Singapore as a primary school student, in which emphasis was placed on the races and religions of Singapore, and in secondary school, where the history of India was taught, that I developed a deeper appreciation for the Ramayana.

Shadow puppets on display at the Peranakan Museum.

The Ramayana as most of us would know, is an epic tale revolving around the universal theme of the triumph of good over evil, that has its roots in Hinduism, which has spread in various forms and interpretations throughout much of Asia. The storyline in itself, revolving around the central characters of Rama, Sita, Lakshmana, Bharata and the monkey god Hanuman who participate in a struggle against Ravana, the demon king of Lanka, which includes stories of love and conquest, is fascinating enough to keep the audiences enthralled. The message brought by the epic tale has served as a powerful means to impart values onto the societies that have embraced Hinduism and Buddhism at some point in their history, and the tales have kept generations of young and old captivated both through the creative means by which the story is related throughout Asia, puppetry and other forms of live performances being commonly used as a means.

Shadow puppets on display. Shadow puppets are made of cow or buffalo hide.

Travelling through much of South-East Asia, one would come across the many forms – masks and puppets being seen throughout much of Indonesia, where the art was thought to have originated from, and Indochina, where it is believed to have taken root since early Angkorian times. This is still seen in Cambodia where the Sbeik Thom shadow puppet play depicts scenes from the Ramayana, and Sbeik Touch, is used to depict plays on daily village life.

Shadow puppetry as seen in Siem Reap, Cambodia. It is believed that the artform, originating from Indonesia, had existed in Cambodia since early Angkorian times.

Live performances of the Ramayana take place throughout South-East Asia in many forms. Masks and costumes are also used in live plays as seen a a theatre in Siem Reap.

Mask Detail: An exhibit at the Ramayana Revisited Exhibition.

In Thailand, the version of the Ramayana told there, the Ramakien has become an important component of the Siamese culture and is in fact the national epic, is performed in many ways, through dance and other forms of theatre, including puppetry and Nang – one of the first methods used for the performance of the Ramakien. Nang is the Siamese version of shadow puppetry adopted by the Thais, and would have its roots in the Indonesian and Angkor versions. The Ramakien has, along with the traditional cast of characters from the Ramayana, also some of its own, including Maiyarap, the Lord of the Underworld, who features prominently in the rather interesting form of puppet play that is performed by the Joe Louis Puppet Theatre. Various scenes from the Ramakien are enacted daily at a theatre at the Suan Lum area near Lumpini Park in Bangkok. In this, more than one puppeteer manipulates the puppet, standing behind it. The puppeteers are visible to the audience and actually mimic the movement of the puppets throughout the show.

A puppeteer at the Joe Louis Puppet Theatre in Bangkok showing a smaller version of the puppets used at the theatre.

The shadow puppet play, which in this part of the world, Wayang Kulit, that I sat through with my grandmother all those years back is possible the first means by which the story was related in much of South-East Asia, having its origins in the Javanese form that pre-dates the arrival of Hinduism in South-East Asia. In this, puppets made of cow or buffalo hide are used to cast shadows on a white sheet, with the movements and voices of the characters controlled by a master puppeteer, known as the Tok Dalang, accompanied by the captivating music of the Gamelan, used to depict scenes from both the Ramayana and the Mahabharata. This was a thriving art form in what is now a muslim Indonesia and Malaysia, despite the Hindu origins of the stories. Much of it has been adapted using the characters from the stories such as Sri Rama and Sita Dewi, and in some versions there is a bit of comic amusement introduced by the characters of court jesters, Pak Dogol and Wak Long.

Kelantanese shadow puppets on display at the Ramayana Revisited exhibition at the Peranakan Museum.

Casting a bright shadow ... shadow puppetry is a simple form of theatre that has kept generations entertained throughout much of South-East Asia.

A scene from Wayang Kulit Siam - a display at the Ramayana Revisited exhibition.

Wayang Kulit has always fascinated me since that early introduction by my grandmother, who having come from the island of Java, had herself been fascinated with the tales of the Ramayana in the form of the dancing shadows, since her childhood. The fascination is one that has also been fed perhaps by my father, who as a scout master, tried his hand at his own version of shadow puppet play using cardboard cut-outs, a kerosene lamp and a white bed sheet, as campfire entertainment. With the Ramayana Revisited exhibition on at the Peranakan Museum in Singapore, which along with the various depictions of the tale from the India, also has displays associated with the many forms that have taken root in South-East Asia, I was glad to have been reminded of this fascination I have had with both the Ramayana and Wayang Kulit, as well as with bringing those wonderful memories of sitting beside my grandmother all those years ago as a five-year old boy back to me.

The streets of the Mahallah: Middle Road, where the Doh Jin Hospital once stood

Continuing on my stroll through the streets of the Mahallah from Selegie Road, I came to what would have been another of the main streets of the Mahallah, Middle Road. What we see of Middle Road today bears little resemblance to the Middle Road that I had known in the 1970s, a Middle Road that I had passed by every weekday on the bus back from school, let alone having much to suggest that it was another thriving part of what was the Jewish Quarter all those years back. There is only the David Elias building, which I had mentioned in the previous post on the streets of the Mahallah, which reminds us of this forgotten past, and nothing much else.

The former Middle Road Hospital stands next to the David Elias Building along Middle Road.

The view down the middle of Middle Road. The road bears very little resemblance to the Middle Road of the 1970s that I was familiar with. There is very little there except for the David Elias building to suggest a Jewish past.

Next to the David Elias building, stands another building that has survived the extensive renewal that Middle Road has seen in the last few decades, not a reminder of the Jewish past, but of a past associated with another ethnic group – the Japanese. The building displays the letters “SIC” prominently at the top, standing next to an empty plot of land – which one could see as a suggestion perhaps, of its previous use. The building today houses Stansfield College, a private college, associated with a previous occupant, the Singapore Institute of Commerce (SIC), which is associated with Stansfield. The building was in fact, up to 1988, one that did house sick occupants, when it was used by the Middle Road Hospital. The building had actually started its life in 1940 as the Doh Jin Hospital, to serve what was a growing Japanese community in the area. The Japanese Consulate was in fact housed nearby, in the building that became Mount Emily Girls’ Home. The hospital became the Middle Road Hospital after the war in 1945, and was referred to by a rather antiquated sounding name, the Social Hygiene Hospital. During the 1970s, I remember my parents would refer to the hospital as a “skin hospital” – it was a centre for the treatment of skin diseases. Along with skin diseases, the hospital was notorious as the centre for treatment of venereal diseases (VD), which we now referred to commonly as STDs or sexually transmitted diseases.

A sign bearing the letters "SIC" perhaps giving a indication of the history of the building? The building had started its life as the Doh Jin Hospital in 1940 and became the Social Hygiene Hospital in 1945.

Another view of what was once the Social Hygiene Hospital.

There is also a little off-shot of Middle Road between the two buildings, which ends in a cul-de-sac, where, on the side of the David Elias building, stands a rather quaint looking building (254, 256 and 258 Middle Road) with a set of bay windows, and a façade very much in the style of the David Elias building. I am not certain of what the origin of this building is. There is in fact an identical building on the reverse side facing Short Street.

Off Middle Road between the David Elias Building and the former Middle Road Hospital, a rather quaint looking house with a set of bay windows stands at the cul-de-sac.

The David Elias building as seen from the cul-de-sac. Part of it was once used as the Sun Sun Hotel. There was a Sun Sun Bar that existed then at the bottom of the hotel.

Crossing Prinsep Street, there is now the IOI Plaza and Prime Centre which stands on a stretch occupied by a row of pre-war shop houses up to the 1980s – I remember this stretch particularly well for a colourful row of three sign makers housed in a rather ramshackle looking single storey shops, sandwiched in between double storey houses. The display of signs and vehicle number plates would catch my eye along with the “Rainbow Signs” signboard on one of the shops. There is still a sign maker, Sin Lian Hua Signcrafts in the area, housed across Middle Road in Sunshine Plaza. The shop has a display, which in a muted way, is reminiscent of the displays of the original shops on Middle Road.

Prime Centre and IOI Plaza stand where a row of shop houses where the colourful displays of three sign makers caught the eye.

Display at Sin Lian Hua Signcrafts in Sunshine Plaza - reminiscent of the displays of the row of three sign makers along Middle Road.

That there was concentration of the sign makers offering vehicle number plates along that stretch of Middle Road was  possibly due to the Registry of Vehicles (ROV) that was located on the opposite side of Middle Road, where Sunshine Plaza now stands, in a compound which also contained the headquarters of the Post Office Savings Bank (POSB). The ROV, which is now part of the Land Transport Authority (LTA) had occupied the premises since 1948, and it was only in 1983 that the department shifted to its new premises in Sin Ming. The building which the ROV occupied had been built as a court house in 1930. The POSB also occupied the premises in Middle Road up till 1983, when it shifted to new premises built on the site of the former Catholic Centre at the corner of Queen Street and Bras Basah Road. Across Prinsep Street from Sunshine Plaza an empty plot of land now stares glaringly at the observer, where once there were more pre-war shop houses, bringing me back to Selegie Road. I don’t remember there anything notable that stood on this plot of land, except for a five storey building which stood out among the mainly two storey shop houses around it like a sore thumb. This building housed the Straits Clinic, which is now in IOI Plaza.

Sunshine Plaza stands in the plot where the compound where the ROV and POSB was once housed.

Rain in the shadow of Sunshine: A couple stands in the rain looking at the David Elias building and Stansfield College in the shadow of Sunshine Plaza.

An empty plot of land between Prinsep Street and Selegie Road, where more shop houses once stood.

Where a car once plunged into the sea: The Mata jetty in Sembawang

What was once a rickety jetty at the end of Sembawang Road, once referred to as Mata Jetty, was the base from which I partook of many of my memorable childhood adventures in and around the beach. The jetty then was in a state of disrepair … a few burnt planks greeting the visitor, along with a few missing and loose planks that made it rather hazardous to tread one’s way over the jetty, not to mention the absence of any form of barriers to prevent one from falling into the sea or the rocky seabed at low tide. The jetty was built in the 1940s, started by the British and completed by the Japanese, then served as a popular place to fish and catch crabs.

The once rickety Mata Jetty at the end of Sembawang - still a popular spot for fishing and crabbing - now with safety railings. Back in the 1970s and 1980s the jetty had a few burnt, loose and missing planks and no safety railings.

The sea then brought a rather bountiful harvest of crabs to anyone willing to put up with the stench of rotting fish that was thought to attract crabs when used as bait, as well as the dangerous conditions on the jetty. A night spent could yield as much as two 5 gallon pails filled with a bounty of flower crabs of reasonable maturity, and a few large clawed mud crabs, unlike the tiny ones we see being caught these days. The implements would include a few square nets with a bamboo frame weighed down with lead sheets wrapped around the lower ends of the frame, a piece of wire to serve as a hook to attach the rotting fish to the top of the frame, and a ball of string, mostly nylon, but raffia was sometimes used as well, one end to be attached to the net, and the other to the kerb at the jetty’s side which allowed the nets to be raised or lowered.

A crab net being raised from the seabed.

Around the jetty, the beach was rather filthy, with a stench from the mix of rotting seaweed, washed up debris and dead fish greeting whoever dared venture onto the beach. To the left of the jetty was the rockier part of the beach, where wading into the murky waters with a torch or a kerosene lamp in one hand, and a butterfly net in the other, we were able to scoop prawns – visible due to the eyes which could be seen in the light of the lamp, along with some kind of puffer fish – which would bloat itself up when caught, and inadvertently jellyfish. Sea snakes and eels (sometimes we could tell) could be seen darting around in the light sometimes. Wading in the sea along the sandy side on the right side of the jetty, besides prawns, we could sometimes see crabs darting across the sand which could be also be scooped up using the butterfly net.

The beach is a lot cleaner now than it was back in the 1970s and 1980s.

A trip to the jetty would always be accompanied by some kind excursion, whether it was to the row of Indian hawker stalls close to the row of bars down Sembawang Road to get our supper of mee goreng and teh tarik, or maybe a stroll in the dark along the dark winding what was once Kelopak, Mata and Beaulieu Roads that led to the jetty from Sembawang Road, with a sharing of tales of the supernatural. There were two muslim graves near the final bend of the road that led to the jetty - somewhere along where the Sembawang Wharf fence which somehow made the stories feel even more real!

Back then, we were also able to build open fires on the beach. With a few twigs, some charcoal, a few red bricks or small rocks, a piece of grill, a few skewers and some oil, we could have a barbecue which had already been prepared or one that involved the harvest from the sea … I can still smell the aroma of the crabs turning orange over the ambers!

View of the jetty in 1965 (Source: http://habitatnews.nus.edu.sg/heritage/sembawang/feedback.html)

Having said that the jetty was rather dangerous … there were actually several incidents, including several drowning incidents involving the jetty that I remember which had not much to do with the safety of the jetty itself, although in one instance, the lack of any barriers along the jetty’s edges made it possible for the incident to happen. In that incident which happened in 1975, a car had been driven off the jetty at high speed, resulting in the death of a woman passenger. It turned out that the accident was deliberately staged and that the driver who was the husband of the passenger, had entered into a suicide pact with his wife – pulling out at the last minute, leaving his wife to drown … the driver of the car was eevntaully charged with murder and was convicted on a reduced charge of manslaughter.

View of the Jetty, the shipyard in the background. A car once plunged into the sea being driven off the jetty at high speed.

The magical hill with a fairy-tale like mansion that was Mount Sophia

Taking a stroll through what were once the streets of the Mahallah, I was drawn to another area close by that I had been acquainted with in my younger days, Mount Sophia. Mount Sophia, back in the days as a SJI schoolboy was a place that I would occasionally visit with a few of my friends, not for the opportunities it presented for meeting the girls who went to school atop the hill, but as a means to get to Plaza Singapura, inaccessible then through Handy Road. The journey we took to Plaza Singapura would take us up the “100 steps” – a long flight of steps behind Cathay cinema which brought up to the top of the hill, also referred to by some as the “99 steps”. This would bring us right up close with Methodist Girls’ School (MGS), an area from where we would be able cross over to one of the upper floors of the multi-storey car park at the back of Plaza Singapura.

The rebuilt "100 steps" to the former magical world of Mount Sophia as it is today.

The former Methodist Girls' School atop Mount Sophia.

There were a few occasions that we chose to wander around the hill, the streets of which were lined with delightful villas and houses – many of which have since disappeared. I was of course previously acquainted with the area – my father had on several occasions, taken me swimming at Mount Emily Swimming Pool, Singapore’s first public swimming pool, built on the site of a municipal reservoir in 1930 on adjoining Mount Emily, which has also since, vanished without a trace. The area where the pool was is now part of the extended Mount Emily Park. It was certainly nice then to re-acquaint myself with the area, which seemed in my childhood, to be a like a magical hill where a fairy-tale like mansion of a very wealthy man had stood.

Another view of the former MGS.

An old Singapore Coat of Arms appears at the entrance to Mount Emily Park.

Mount Emily Park offers a peaceful escape from the hustle and bustle of the city below the hill.

A lady in Punjabi dress stares into the space that was the Mount Emily Swimming Pool, the dome of the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Sikh Temple in the background.

An early timetable for Mount Emily Swimming Pool (c. 1930s).

Walking around Mount Sophia today, one is greeted by a mix of the old and new … the old seemingly overshadowed by the taller structures of the apartment blocks that have replaced the stately homes of which, many had belonged or had been lived in by the more successful Jewish immigrant families. It would have been convenient for these families to live in what was an upper and middle class area located just by the Mahallah, where many would have conducted their businesses and gone about their day-to-day activities. The girls’ school, MGS, on top of Mount Sophia was also where many would have sent their daughters to.

New apartment blocks being put up against the backdrop of the older structures on Mount Sophia.

Of the buildings that still exist, several have had connections to this past. On Wilkie Road, at the corner of Niven Road, we can see a delightful apartment block, the Sophia Flats, built in 1930, on the edge of the old Mahallah. This is where one of the prominent members of the local Jewish community, Frank Benjamin, had lived after the war. Frank’s father Judah had owned a thriving textile business and the family lived in a big house on Adis Road prior to the war. Returning from Bombay after the war, the Benjamin family moved to the more modest lodgings at the Sophia Flats. This was also where Frank set up an office to trade office stationery and photographic equipment in 1959, a business which has since grown into the international fashion retailer company F J Benjamin is today. F J Benjamin is associated with names such as Guess?, Banana Republic, La Senza, Céline, GAP and Girard-Perregaux, presently and had at one time held the license for names such as Gucci and Lanvin.

Sophia Flats, built in 1930, was where Frank Benjamin had lived in after the war and set up his first office in 1959.

At 81 Wilkie Road, there is also the Abdullah Shooker Welfare Home, housed in a bungalow once owned by an Iraqi Jew, Abdullah Shooker, who had come over to work in the offices of Manasseh Meyer, before opening his own successful business. Abdullah passed away in 1942 whilst being interned by the Japanese, bequeathing his bungalow for use as a home for the destitute in the community.

The Abdullah Shooker Welfare Home at 81 Wilkie Road.

There are also several other notable buildings that still stand, including several former schools: the buildings that were the MGS atop the hill alongside the former Trinity Theological College, the former Nan Hwa Girls’ High School at the corner of Sophia Road and Adis Road, and the former San Shan Chinese School off Mount Sophia – just down from the former Trinity Theological College. A mansion that was once used as the Mount Emily Girls’ Home, which is now Emily Hill, an arts centre, stands at the end of Upper Wilkie Road. One girls’ school that is still functioning at Mount Sophia is St. Margaret’s Primary School.

The former Nan Hwa Girls' High School at the corner of Adis and Sophia Roads.

The buildings that used to be part of the Trinity Theological College on top of Mount Sophia.

The former San Shan Chinese School off Mount Sophia.

The former Mount Emily Girls' Home - now an arts centre.

There are several wonderful buildings, the stuff of fairy tales perhaps, that have sadly disappeared. One such building was the magnificent villa that belonged to Eu Tong Sen, Eu Villa that once dominated the landscape in the area – which as schoolboys we could get a glimpse of atop the high retaining wall just next to Peace Centre from where Wilkie and Sophia Roads met near the Sophia Flats. Eu Villa was in 1915, constructed on the site of Adis Lodge which, when it was built in 1907, was said to be one of the most magnificent mansions east of the Suez. Adis Lodge was owned by Nassim Nassim Adis, the owner of Hotel de L’Europe and sold to Eu Tong Sen in 1912. Another magnificent mansion that has vanished, was one owned by M. J. Nassim at 89 Wilkie Road.

Eu Villa - the magical home of Eu Tong Sen (Source: www.singapedia.com.sg).

Nestled amongst the magnificent buildings were several places of worship which still stand. These include the Church of Christ at the junction of Sophia and Wilkie Roads and the Sri Guru Singh Sabha Sikh Temple on Wilkie Road (the temple is now housed in a new building built in 1983 next to the older house next to it that was used as a temple from 1932). The buildings that we still see and those that now tower over the old mansions, schools and houses of worship, are certainly not the buildings that fairy-tales are made of. For that, I suppose, there is that fairy-tale like atmosphere that we can now find in Singapore – not up a magical hill, but on an island called Sentosa ….

The Sri Guru Singh Sabha Sikh Temple (1983) on Wilkie Road.

Old Building belonging to the Sikh Temple which was used as the temple from 1932 to 1983.

Information plaque of the building belonging to the Sikh Temple.

Afternote:

This photograph (click on link) on the Memories of Singapore site provides a good idea of the area in the 1960s. It would have been some time after Selegie House and Selegie School came up in 1963 as these are clearly visible in the photograph. Eu Villa stands out just to the right of Cathay Building and it is not hard to appreciate how the villa would have stood out on Mount Sophia before Peace Centre was built.

My stroll through the streets that made up the Mahallah: Selegie Road

Wandering around the Selegie Road area today, there is very little of the old that is left to remind us of the Selegie Road that existed in the when I was growing up in the 1960s, and certainly even less of a time when you might have thought you were in a different world altogether. That was a time we have long left behind as Singaporeans, a past that we have perhaps chosen to forget.

Signs of the times: Selegie Road at the turn of the 21st Century ... a very different world from when it was a bustling street within the Mahallah.

The area today boasts of spanking new edifices, the School of the Arts for one and Wilkie Edge being another, representative perhaps of the Singapore we have become, somewhat cold and grey, seemingly perfect and lacking in identity, much like Huxley’s Brave New World. Interspersed with the new kids on the block are several older structures built in the 1960s and 1970s, such as Peace Centre, Selegie House and the former Selegie School, as well as some pre-war buildings that have hitherto managed to escape the wrecker’s ball.

Spanking new buildings now stand in what was once the Mahallah.

It is the pre-war buildings that provide a glimpse into the forgotten past, when it was part of an area referred to by its inhabitants as the Mahallah, or “place” in Arabic. Of these, two, the David Elias building at the junctions of Selegie Road, Middle Road and Short Street, and the Ellison building which is located at the end of Selegie Road provide the clues as to whom the inhabitants of the Mahallah were, not Arabs as one might have assumed, but members of the Diaspora, the symbol of which, the Star of David, is displayed prominently on the façades. It was a comment on my post on Selegie Road, from a reader Mamadondi, who lived in the vicinity from 1958 to 1978, who suggested a link between the two buildings that prompted me to take a stroll through the area in an attempt to acquaint myself with this past.

Selegie Road today is a mix of modern buildings and pre-war buildings such as the former Tiger Balm building and the David Elias building.

The former Tiger Balm Building at the corner of Short Street and Selegie Road - a surviving pre-war building on Selegie Road without a Jewish past.

The Mahallah was the “place” where the many working class Baghdadi Jews who had settled in Singapore around the turn of the twentieth century, called home, a Jewish Quarter so to speak. They went about the daily business, just as they might have done on the streets of old Baghdad or Calcutta where many had originated from, living amongst the Indian, Eurasian and Chinese families in the area. The area included Selegie Road, Short Street, Wilkie Road, Sophia Road, Prinsep Street and Middle Road. That Arabic was a common language and that the two buildings mentioned both display the Star of David on their façades, provides an appreciation for who the area’s inhabitants were. It was common to see Jews dressed in Iraqi attire, with men topped with a fez, as the new immigrants sought to recreate a familiarity of where they had arrived from, within the surroundings of their new world. The large Jewish families that lived in the area were relatively poor, many with ten or more children, and most were cramped in the many small two storey houses that were common in the area. Many were small traders, rabbis and bakers who came to seek a better life or to serve the community, some following their more successful brethren, for the promise of success. Living in the Mahallah, many struggled to make ends meet. However, it was from the adversity of living in these conditions that many in the community succeeded in life, with many prominent and successful Singaporeans emerging out of the Mahallah, among them Jacob Ballas and Harry Elias.

The David Elias Building with Stars of David displayed prominently provides a link to the area

On this point, it must be said that wider community of Baghdadi Jews had in fact seen tremendous success, with many living in stately mansions away from the Mahallah, or close by on Mount Sophia, among them the Elias family and Mannaseh Meyer. The community also provided Singapore, with its first Chief Minister, David Marshall – the son of an Baghdadi immigrant, Saul Marshall. The Elias family had through their patriarch, Aaron, who passed away in 1902, amassed a huge fortune from the opium trade. At the point of Aaron’s untimely death, the mantle was taken up by the eldest son, Joseph Aaron Elias. The family was known for its stately mansion by the sea on the East Coast, as well as a holiday villa in Tampines which provided Elias Road in Pasir Ris with its name. Several buildings including Amber Mansions that stood on Orchard Road where the Dhoby Ghaut MRT station is today is attributed to Joseph. The David Elias building was built by David J. Elias, who was the second cousin of Joseph Aaron Elias, and brother-in-law, having married Joseph’s sister Miriam, and was a successful import and export merchant in his own right. The building which was designed by the prominent colonial architectural firm, Swan and MacLaren, and built in 1928, contained many offices and shops and the offices of David’s company, D. J. Elias and Company.

Floor tiles on the five-foot way of the David Elias building.

The Ellison Building as seen from the junction of Rochor Canal and Selegie Roads.

At the end of Selegie Road at its junction with Bukit Timah Road, stands the Ellison building which I mentioned in a previous post. The origins of the buildings are rather vague, having been described in an infopedia article as being built for a Jewish lady named Ellison. It could very well have been for a Flora Ellison, having been put up in 1924 by Issac Ellison, a Romanian Jew who owned an Iky’s Bar near Raffles Place which was apparently quite a popular nightspot. Issac was married to Flora who was a Baghdadi Jewess who had come from Rangoon.

Issac (Ike) and Flora Ellison (Source: Joan Bieder's "The Jews of Singapore").

I guess it is hard to imagine how the area once was – an aerial view of Eu Villa on Mount Sophia, which incidentally was also designed by Swan and MacLaren, available on the National Archives PICAS site provides an impression of how it would have looked like in the pre-war years, without recreating the atmosphere that existed. It was good to have Joan Bieder’s excellent book, “The Jews of Singapore”, for which much of the factual information provided here is based on, to accompany my stroll through the area, as a guide. Whatever it was … the Mahallah has ceased to exist, living only the the memory of those who lived there … replaced by the modern structures which struggle to recreate the vibrancy that the inhabitants of the Mahallah once brought to the area.

Aerial view of Eu Villa on Mount Sophia from the National Archives PICAS website providing a good idea of how the area looked like before the war in 1940.

When did the tiger at the corner of Selegie Road and Short Street go missing?

While looking at a photograph I had taken of that distinctive building which stands at the corner of Short Street and Selegie Road, a building that has been a feature on Selegie Road for as long as I can remember, it came to me that I once used to see a tiger at the top of the building. The 4 storey building which was, when I was growing up, used by the Chung Khiaw Bank and later after its merger with United Overseas Bank (UOB), by the UOB Group, had more recently housed the offices and a food court of Banquet Holdings Pte Ltd, operators of the Banquet chain of halal food courts. The building, I sadly learnt, would soon be making way for a 12 storey entertainment hub named 10 square after its 100 Selegie Road address which would feature a 14 metre wide LED screen on its façade.

The very distinctive building at the corner of Short Street and Selegie Road.

The tiger I used to see was not a live one of course … it was one that we are well acquainted with in Singapore – the tiger that we see on the labels of Tiger Balm. This does provide a clue to the history of the building, which my father had referred to as the Tiger Balm Building. It had housed a Eng Aun Tong Medical Hall, as is evidenced by a 1941 photograph seen at http://kaufmann-mercantile.com/tiger-balm/. The photograph also shows that an additional floor had been added on at some point in time.

The Tiger Balm Building, 1941 (Source: http://kaufmann-mercantile.com/tiger-balm).

It would not be hard to explain how the building came to be used by Chung Khiaw Bank – the bank had been established in 1950 by Aw Boon Haw, the man who together with his brother Aw Boon Par, gave us Tiger Balm, Haw Par Corporation and the Haw Par Villa. When, the use of the building changed, I was not able to establish, as with when the tiger disappeared. What I do know is that the tiger could still be seen in a 1975 photograph of Selegie Road. I also remember looking out for it on the bus ride home when I was receiving my lower secondary education between 1977 and 1978. By 1990, as seen in another photograph in Ray Tyers book, the tiger had already gone missing, a fate that now awaits its former home.

The tiger still seen above the former Tiger Balm Building in a photograph of Selegie Road taken in 1975 (Source: Ray Tyers Singapore Then & Now).

A Tall Ship in port: The Pallada

There is nothing more magnificent than seeing a rigged sailing ship, sails fully deployed, making its way at full speed over the sea. I have always dreamt of sailing on board one of these … since being drawn to the white silhouette of a clipper that stood against red container of my father’s Old Spice hair cream which sat on the dresser when I maybe five or six. I have always made it a point to visit one whenever the opportunity arose … the Cutty Sark, a well preserved retired clipper involved in the tea trade, being one that I had visited at its resting place in Greenwich.

The Pallada at its berth next to Vivo City.

It was a pleasant surprise when I learnt that Tall Ship Pallada was in town and made it a point to get acquainted with at the berth alongside Vivo City. The steel hulled three masted Fully Rigged Ship is operated by the Navigation Institute of Dalrybvtuz (the Russian Far Eastern State Fisheries University). Used as a seamanship training ship to train cadets for the Russian merchant fleet, the Pallada carries over 100 cadets, including some from the Singapore Maritime Academy.

A Ship's Officer on the Pallada.

Cadets on the quarterdeck.

The Pallada which currently holds the record as the fastest Tall Ship with a maximum speed of 18.7 knots under sails, was in port for stay of 4 days from 11 to 14 March. Built in Poland in the year, 1989, when the fall of communism in Europe commenced with the events there, by the Gdansk Shipyard (Stocznia Gdańska), the 106 metre (sparred length) ship boasts a main mast of 49.5 metres, has a draught of 6 metres and a beam of 14 metres. Gdansk Shipyard is of course the yard where the Solidarity movement, which was instrumental in the fall of communism in Poland, began in 1980. The Pallada is named after the Greek goddess Pallas Athena, is based at Vladivostok in the Russian Far East and can hoist 26 sails with a total area of 2771 square metres.

The foremast sail.

The foremast sail and jib being hoisted.

Up the foremast.

On the yards of the foremast ...

Ship's name on the bow.

Engine Room skylight.

Liferafts

The main mast.

Block and tackle.

Anchor chain on the gypsy.

A sailor on the forecastle.

Sailors on deck.

Ship's bell.

Builder's plate.

Stay of the main mast.

Mooring rope on quarterdeck.

Up the main mast.

The bowsprit.

From watching for free from a muddy slope to the luxury of the Paddock Club: The Singapore GP then and now.

There was a time when watching the Grand Prix in Singapore meant having to brave the heat of the afternoon sun on the muddy tree lined slopes of Old Upper Thomson Road. Being run over the Easter weekend, going to the races offered a young boy something to look forward to besides Easter eggs, hot cross buns and the tedium of the very long Good Friday services and vigil masses that my grandmother was fond of dragging me to. I always looked forward to accompanying my father, his trusty old thermos flask filled to the brim with thick black coffee, and a thick wad of old newspapers, to the slopes which offered a glimpse of the cars and motorcycles that sped by as they made their way through the narrow and treacherous three mile street circuit.

The treacherous old GP circuit at Old Upper Thomson Road offered the public free access to witness the thrills and spills up close.

35 years after the original Singapore GP was banned in 1973 - a very different Singapore GP was re-introduced, run in the lights on the streets of down town Singapore.

That was a time when life I guess, was a little simpler, when we were content just to be able to catch the action up close, sitting on a piece of newsprint which protected our clothes from being soiled by the mud underneath. Most of us probably wouldn’t have thought of spending the seemingly exorbitant sums involved with watching the GP these days.

Spectators watching the motorcycle race perched on the muddy slopes.

The original Singapore GP had started off as the Orient Year Grand Prix in 1961, being renamed the Malaysian Grand Prix in 1962, and after independence, the Singapore Grand Prix. The GP was run right up to 1973, following which concerns about safety – there having had been seven fatalities and numerous injuries up to that point, and the negative influence it was thought to have on the driving habits of the local motorists, saw it being banned. It was not until 2008 when the GP was reintroduced, with the lure of the money and glamour that the sport brings to it host cities an overriding factor. The reintroduction has also given the F1 GP season its first and only night race – run on a street circuit that brings spectacular views of the illuminated Singapore skyline. The inaugural race received some mixed reactions and even some drama with one personality even describing the night race as a circus.

The inaugural F1 night race brought the GP back to Singapore after an absence of 35 years. The street circuit runs through the beautifully illuminated iconic structures of the night time Singapore skyline.

The inaugural F1 night race in 2008 runs past some icons of Singapore including the old Supreme Court and City Hall.

I suppose one does have a choice of how to catch the race these days … spending close to nothing catching the action from the comfort of one’s armchair in one’s living room or perhaps forking out a relatively small sum of money to walk the race track or a more painful sum to be seated at the grandstands … for the more fortunate, there is of course the ridiculous sums that one has to pay to get into the Paddock Club. There is also that chance you can get your hands on an invitation to one of the team’s hospitality suites … where the contrast with that muddy slope I sat on more than three decades ago, couldn’t be more apparent …

The comfort and luxury of a Paddock Club hospitality suite offers the ultimate experience in being up close to the GP - a far cry from watching from the muddy slopes of Old Upper Thomson Road.

The Scuderia Ferrari suite.

The Paddock Club offers a free flow of bubbly, spirits and just about anything else.

Top class chefs are flown in specially for the event.

A lounge - put up just for 3 days of action.

Live entertainment is also provided at the Paddock Club.

The Paddock Club also offers access to the Grandstand where the action and roar of the engines can be caught up close.

The suites offer a close up view of the action on the pitwall as well.

As well as the pits ...

Life in the pits.

The pit crew in action.

A secret that one of the bridges at the mouth of the river once hid …

One of the wonderful things we have inherited from our colonial masters is the magnificent structures that we see around our civic district in Singapore. From the glorious columned and domed civil buildings such as the Empress Place Building, the old Supreme Court, City Hall, and the National Museum Building, to the many bridges that straddle the Singapore river, these iconic structures give much of downtown Singapore its character, and provide us with a constant reminder of our history.

I have always found a fascination with these structures, the bridges in particular, since my early childhood. It could have been a fascination that was brought about by listening to the nursery rhyme, London Bridge is Falling Down, which brought with it visions of Tower Bridge, which due to its association with London, many of us young and unaware, mistook as the subject of the nursery rhyme.

I particularly loved the two marvellous examples of the proficiency that the British had for building beautiful bridges that straddled the mouth of the Singapore River, a stone’s throw from the Empress Place Building and the Esplanade that my parents often visited: the arched trusses that is the Anderson Bridge and the cable-stayed Cavenagh Bridge. I always found it a treat for me to walk on the bridges. The Anderson Bridge seemingly hiding a mystery within its intricate steel arches decorated with huge rivet heads, through which one could catch a glimpse of the girders over water below. I was particularly fond of the Cavenagh Bridge, for the thick cables that held it up and the bounce that it provided as one walked along.

I loved the Anderson Bridge since my childhood. The steel arches always seemed to hide a mystery.

The Cavenagh Bridge always provided a bounce.

The rivet decorated steel arches of the Anderson Bridge.

The Cavenagh Bridge, the oldest bridge in Singapore, was built in 1868 by Indian convicts and is named after Colonel Cavenagh, the last Governor of the Straits Settlements appointed by the British East India Company and served as an essential all-weather link between the civic quarter and Commercial Square (now Raffles Place), replacing a ferry service which ran across the river. It was refurbished twice – once in 1937 when it was reportedly in danger of “falling down”, and again in 1987. Built as a bridge for both vehicle and pedestrian traffic, it was meant to be demolished when the nearby Anderson Bridge was constructed to replace it and it is fortunate that what is Singapore’s only suspension bridge wasn’t demolished, being converted into a pedestrian and light vehicle bridge sometime after Anderson Bridge was opened. Evidence of this is shown in a sign which prohibited vehicles laden over 3 cwt and all cattle and horses from using the bridge.

The cabled stayed Cavenagh Bridge was built as an all-weather link between the civic quarter and Commercial Square and is the only suspension bridge in Singapore.

A historic sign which was probably put up when the Anderson Bridge was opened, prohibiting vehicles of over 3 cwt and cattle and horses from using Cavenagh Bridge.

The Cavenagh Bridge by night.

The Anderson Bridge, which now features prominently in the Singapore F1 circuit, was built by Public Works Department and was opened in 1910 by Sir John Anderson, the Governor of the Straits Settlements from 1904 to 1911, after whom it is named. It was built to replace the Cavenagh Bridge which was unable to cope with the fast increasing vehicle and pedestrian traffic. Little was I to know that all that time when I was enjoying the strolls with my parents along the bridge, the steel trusses had indeed been hiding a mystery – sometime at the end of the 1980s, a skeleton of a man who had died some two decades earlier had been found hidden within the steelwork by a man involved in maintenance work on the bridge. The steel arches had apparently been used by the Japanese to display the heads of beheaded spies during the Second World War.

The Anderson Bridge seen soon after its opening in the early 1900s in an old postcard.

The Anderson Bridge is now part of the nightscape that features in Singapore's F1 night race circuit.

The Anderson Bridge was erected at the mouth of the Singapore River to replace the Cavenagh Bridge.

There was of course other sinister stories that were then associated with bridges, albeit of a different kind. One that I remember very clearly was associated with the construction of road bridges or flyovers that were coming up in earnest in the late 1960s and early 1970s, as part of the efforts to improve the island’s road network. Then, many of us children lived in a constant fear fuelled by the constant rumours we heard of “head-hunters” seeking heads of young children to serve as a sacrifice to appease the spirits that may otherwise influence the success of a bridge construction project. I suppose these fears were probably unfounded – perhaps circulated by parents as a means to put the fear of kidnapping, which seemed to be quite a common occurrence then, in their children.

Builder's plate on the Cavenagh Bridge.

The Cavenagh Bridge is used as a pedestrian bridge.

The steel work of the Anderson Bridge did hide a secret for two decades - a skeleton of a man was found in the girders below in the late 1980s, having been hidden for some 20 years.

Bridges these days are perhaps less interesting as structures, built more to serve a practical purpose. Much of the vehicular traffic these days is taken by one of these modern bridges across the mouth of the Singapore River … the Esplanade Bridge which was completed in 1997, perhaps built to blend in with the modern icons such as the Esplanade, looks almost plain against the backdrop of its two older siblings. What is nice to know is that the two bridges that I love, would still be a part of the landscape of the river along with the magnificent colonial buildings they stand next to.

Bridges built these days are a little more practical and a lot less inspiring. The Esplanade Bridge built in 1997 now takes much of the traffic that crosses the mouth of the SIngapore River.

Before the calculator …

These days, we have become so used to computers, mobile devices and hand held or calculators for our day-to-day activities, so much so that some of us may have forgotten how we got by doing the more complex calculations back in those days where the hand held calculator did not exist. I myself had almost forgotten this myself until I dug up a book which accompanied me during my secondary school days and when I sat for my “O” level examinations: a book of Logarithmic Tables or the “Log Book” as we used to refer to it in school. I am not sure how long they were used for, but by the time my sister was sitting for her “O” level examinations, she had already been using a hand-held calculator to help with the more complex multiplications, divisions, and trigonometric calculations.

Front and Back Covers of the "Log Book" that I used.

I think most of us back then had a wonderful time with it … some probably used it to sneak in mathematical formula for the exams. The Log Book actually helped many of us to appreciate some of the mathematical concepts better such as the use of logarithms and interpolation (of which we had to master to be able to successfully make use of the Log Book), where these days we are used to having numbers appear at the touch of a button without really putting much thought into it.

Contents of the Log Book.

Instructions on how to use the Log Book.

Complex multiplications (or divisions) could be done by converting numbers into a logarithm, being the exponent that a base number is raised to give the number. This simplified multiplications and divisions as the exponent could then be added or subtracted and the resultant being reconverted back (antilogarithm) to a number. There were also tables for sines, cosines and tangents as well as for square roots and hyperbolic functions in the Log Book. I know it sounds like a tedious process but it made a world of difference when access to a calculator was limited.

Table of Logarithms.

Table of Antilogarithms.

Table of Logarithms of Sines.

Table of Cosines.

Table of Square Roots.

The holes in the walls

One of the things you always found around were the convenience stores of old: the hole-in-the-wall shops nestled in the corner of the five-foot way at the side of a building or in some alleyway. Many referred to these shops as “Mama shops”, “Mama” being the Tamil noun for elder or uncle, as the majority of these were run by shopkeepers of Indian origin. You could get most of your cravings for snacks fulfilled, rummaging through the compartments of the wooden racks laid against the wall, or in the plastic bags that lined the walls and racks, or maybe pulling it off a cardboard backing on which it was stapled on. This was where the newspaper and your favourite magazine, the daily supply of cigarettes and other necessities such as medicated oils could be picked up from.

Kuti-kuti.

This was one of the things about the streets of the Singapore that I grew up in that I just so loved … where my weekly dose of the Dandy and the Beano comics and Shoot! magazine were obtained from, as well as my favourite snacks: preserved Chinese olives, which we called “kana“, packed in threes and twisted in a roll of paper and clear cellophane; and ball-shaped fish keropok. The hole-in-the-wall, was where many of my fellow schoolboys in their attempt to style their hair as John Travolta did in the movie Grease, got their means to do so: a bottle of Vitalis hairstyling liquid (Vitalis was in the late 1970s and early 1980s what Tancho Pomade was in the 1960s and early 1970s) and a plastic comb. The shops also provided some necessary objects without which we may not have had much to do with our spare time: small rubber balls for our games of “hantam bola“, the objective of which was to hit another player (hard!) with the ball; and the air filled plastic balls which we kicked around the corridors and basketball courts; as well as “kuti-kuti“: little colourful plastic pieces in the shape of animals and sometimes everyday objects, which we tried to “kuti” or flick over one another using our forefinger.

A typical hole in the wall shop in Little India.

Magazine display - clothes pegs are used to attach them to a vertical piece of string which is suspended from a horizontal line or bar.

My favourite comics were Dandy and Beano which I purchased off the clothes peg from the hole-in-the-wall shops

Items which were also popular were the Hacks or Hudson’s cough drops, sold at five cents for two pieces, or as the shopkeeper would have said: “five cents two”. These sweets were (and still are) very popular with the local population. This brings to mind an advertisement for Hack’s on TV in perhaps the late 1970s or early 1980s, which seemed to have caught the attention of many back then. The advertisement had someone resembling Tarzan, losing his voice and with it, his distinctive yell. Saved by a Hacks cough-drop, an exuberant Tarzan finished the advertisement off with the yell “Or-ee-or, Hacks, Hacks” followed by a catchy jingle that went “one for you, one for me, and one for the family”, which perhaps a few would remember.

A hole-in-the-wall shop along a five-foot way in the 1960s with its display of magazines and interestingly, bananas on a stem for sale (which I mentioned in my post on Selegie Road). Photo courtesy of Mr Derek Tait.

These days the convenience stores are bigger holes in the wall, many of the traditional Indian run ones have appeared in dedicated units found in the void decks of HDB flats. There are of course the more modern air-conditioned ones like 7-11 and Cheers, requiring customers to have bigger pockets with the relatively high operating costs. It is nice to know that there are still a few of the traditional ones around, in some of the parts of Singapore where time has left behind. These have somehow become less popular with supermarkets and the new convenience stores sprouting up everywhere. The few that are left may soon, as with many of the things I loved about the Singapore of old, be just a distant memory.

The modern day hole-in-the-wall shop: a much bigger and air-conditioned hole with items sold at bigger prices.