15 February Commemoration and the Civilian War Memorial

Posted on February 15, 2020 by

Every year, on this date of 15 February, the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCCI) will organise the war memorial service in commemoration of the civilian victims of the Japanese Occupation (1942-1945). It is also the Total Defence Day on this date. Back in 1942, the British forces surrendered Singapore to the Japanese, marking the beginning of three-and-a-half years of sufferings for the people of Singapore.

One of the commemorations is carried out annually at the Civilian War Memorial at Beach Road. The monument dedicates to those who had perished during the occupation; its four 68m-tall columns symbolising the shared sufferings, hardship and unity of Singapore’s four main races – Malay, Chinese, Indian and Eurasian.

Shortly after the fall of Singapore, the Japanese forces carried out the notorious Sook Ching operation, starting from 21 February 1942. Many Chinese males, aged between 18 and 50, were rounded up and massacred at different locations in Singapore. The total number of victims remains inconclusive, ranging from an estimated 5,000 to as high as 40,000.

In 1962, many mass war graves of the Japanese Occupation victims were discovered at Siglap and Changi Road. While requesting the British government to seek atonement and compensation from Japan (the British was still in-charge of Singapore’s foreign affairs), Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and the Singapore government also lobbied for a war memorial to be built in commemoration of the war victims.

In 1963, a plot of land of size 1.8 hectares at Beach Road, opposite the former campus of Raffles Institution, was selected for the construction of the war memorial park and monument. Half of the $500,000 construction cost would be paid by the government, while the remaining funds were raised through donation drives carried out by the Singapore Chinese Chamber of Commerce and other local organisations and societies.

A design contest for the monument and park was launched, followed by a ground-breaking ceremony conducted on 15 June 1963. An exhibition was held at the Victoria Memorial Hall, displaying the various designs submitted by the participating design firms. In the end, Swan and Maclaren won the contest and its architect Leong Swee Lim was the designer of the iconic monument we see today.

The Civilian War Memorial was completed in early 1967 and officially unveiled by Lee Kuan Yew on 15 February 1967, marking the 25th anniversary of the fall of Singapore. The solemn ceremony was attended by the public, many of them the surviving family members of the war victims. Singapore’s religious leaders of the Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Sikh and Zoroastrian faiths also attended the ceremony.

The remains of the thousands of victims uncovered in the mass war graves were exhumed and reinterred, based on different religions. Those who were cremated had their ashes placed in 606 urns, and were stored inside the chamber of the memorial podium. A large bronze urn at the centre of the four columns symbolises the remains of the dead buried at the memorial podium underneath.

Since 1967, annual commemoration and memorial services were conducted at the Civilian War Memorial. In the seventies and eighties, many families still wept at the losses of their loved ones at the ceremonies. The passing of the older generations may have brought along with them the agonising and horrific memories of the war and losses of family members. But it remains important for the next generations of Singaporeans to remember this painful lesson and darkest moment in Singapore’s history.

“We meet not to rekindle old fires of hatred, nor to seek settlements for blood debts. We meet to remember the men and women who were the hapless victims of one of the fires of history. This monument will remind those of us who were here 25 years ago, of what can happen to people caught completely unaware and unprepared for what was in store for them. It will help our children understand and remember, what we have told them of this lesson we paid so bitterly to learn.” – Lee Kuan Yew, 1967

The Civilian War Memorial was gazetted as a national monument on 15 August 2013.

Published: 15 February 2020

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From Old Woodlands to New

Posted on February 9, 2020 by

The Woodlands of the early 20th century was an entirely rural area, filled with forest and mangrove swamps with clusters of attap huts, rubber plantations and farms. Over at Malaya, across the Straits of Johore, all that its residents could see were just rows of tall and green Keranji trees that formed the “woodlands”.

One of the earliest modern facilities at Woodlands was the old railway station – even though it was a simple single-storey building on a platform – when the Singapore-Kranji railway line started operating in 1903. The railway station was located just beside the Woodlands Jetty, where ferries fetched the passengers across the narrow strait to Malaya.

A new Woodland Road, made of asphalt surface on a solid granite foundation, was built by the Public Works Department at the same period, replacing the old derelict Woodlands Road and acting as a direct link between Kranji Road and the railway station.

Business for the new railway station was poor at the start, as the undeveloped Woodlands was simply too far away from the town area. In the 1903 Straits Settlement Annual Report, there were only 19 season ticket holders, and the net earning per train mile was only 63 cents. Railway workers at the old Woodlands also faced many difficulties. Diseases and illnesses, especially fever, were rampant. The black dust emitted by the train engines had polluted the surroundings, making living conditions unbearable.

The ferry service at Woodlands was Singapore’s only connecting link with Peninsula Malaya. By the early 20th century, the ferries were overly burdened by the high volumes of commodities and goods’ shipping between Malaya and Singapore. The solution of a rubble causeway was proposed and accepted. Construction works began in 1920.

The Causeway was built in 1923, ending the ferry service and completed the connection of Singapore’s railway network with the mainland of Peninsula Malaya. The $17-million Causeway was officially opened on 28 June 1924 by then-Governor Sir Laurence Guillemard. For the first time, commuters and motorists could travel on road and rail between Malaya and Singapore.

The construction of the Singapore Naval Base (Sembawang Shipyard today), from the 1920s to late 1930s, also led to significant infrastructure development along the northern coast, including Naval Base Road and the Naval Base Railway that branched off from the main railway line at the Woodlands station. The Naval Base Railway had long vanished into history, while Naval Base Road had evolved into Admiralty Road West today.

After the Second World War, Woodlands remained largely rural and rustic. Rubber plantations and attap villages were aplenty. The larger villages in this northern part of Singapore were Kampong Lorong Fatimah, Kampong Wak Selat, Kampong Melayu, Kampong Sin Min, Kampong Sungei Mandai Kechil and Mandai Tekong Village. Many of the villages were only accessible via muddy tracks that branched off the main Mandai Road, Sembawang Road, Woodlands Road and Naval Base Road.

A rural road called Lorong Gambas, located off Jalan Ulu Sembawang, gave rise to the modern Gambas Avenue, one of the main roads that leads to Woodlands’ industrial estates today. Until the mid-eighties, Jalan Ulu Sembawang was a road leading to vegetable farms and fish ponds. Today, the road was primarily gone; only a short section of it, off Mandai Road, has been converted into a Park Connector Network (PCN) pathway.

About 1,899 families at Woodlands were resettled since 1969. Out of those, 877 families chose to stay within Woodlands and Marsiling rather than moving to other parts of Singapore.

During the seventies and eighties, it was common to see kampongs and the new HDB flats coexisted in the same vicinity. As redevelopment inched closer to the doorsteps, some villages managed to hold on until the last minute. Kampong Lorong Fatimah, demolished in the late eighties, was one of the last Woodlands villages.

Kampong Wak Selat, located off Kranji Road and at the fringe of Woodlands, managed to survive until the mid-nineties. It former site is now home to Jurong Town Corporation (JTC) flatted factories. A minor road in the vicinity called Jalan Wak Selat is the only remnant of the kampong today.

The development of Woodlands as an upcoming new town began in the early seventies. It was part of Singapore’s third five-year plan in 1970, which aimed to build 100,000 flats at Toa Payoh, Queenstown and three proposed new towns in Woodlands, Bedok and Telok Blangah.

At Woodlands, a rubber plantation was cleared by mid-1971. The construction of Woodlands New Town – an initial 5,000 one-room, three-room and four-room improved type flats – officially kicked off in October 1971.

A 1973 HDB magazine My Home ran an article featuring Woodlands as a “Frontier Centre” of the seventies, where it would be filling with flats, shops, departmental stores, markets, schools, banks and parks. The “Frontier Centre” concept referred to Woodlands’ close proximity to the Causeway, hence it would be welcoming tourists and visitors from Johor and other parts of Malaysia.

The initial plan for Woodlands by HDB was to build 55,000 units, in different stages, in a designated 1,000 hectares of area. By comparison, HDB only planned 425, 545 and 730 hectares of land for the development of Clementi, Bedok and Ang Mo Kio respectively. Woodlands, Singapore’s fourth new town, was expected to be the largest new town when fully developed.

Woodlands’ Neighbourhood I had provided an initial 1,400 flats to approximately 7,000 residents in the mid-seventies. By 1977, 5,400 Woodlands units were completed, most of them located on the east side of the Woodlands Immigration and Customs Checkpoint.

The same year also kicked off the construction of the Woodlands Town Centre. Upon its completion, the town centre thrived to become a bustling neighbourhood, particularly from the seventies till the mid-nineties, after which its popularity declined and was eventually closed in late 2017 and demolished a year later.

But Woodlands’ progress by the late seventies was far from satisfactory. Its development had been slowed down due to poor demand, as many HDB flat applicants viewed it as an isolated and inconvenient area. Critics were skeptical about Woodlands’ growth; some even predicted that it would become a ghost town. The new Telok Blangah housing estate, developed at about the same period as Woodlands and located much nearer to the downtown and city areas, was a far more popular choice.

The early Woodlands residents and shopowners also expressed disappointment with the new town’s inadequate transport, shopping and recreational facilities. City-bound bus services were insufficient and the nearest cinema was Rex, located at Rochor which was more than an hour’s journey away.

Things would slowly improve by the early eighties, although Woodlands’ population remained low at only 37,000 in 1981. Ang Mo Kio New Town, which was developed two years later than Woodlands, already had 200,000 residents by then.

Resettled residents from the kampongs gradually moved into the new town of Woodlands. Other residents were made up of the workers at the new industrial estates and Sembawang Shipyard. The first industrial estates at Woodlands, made up of about 150 single-storey terrace factory and workshop units for light and general industries, had been completed at Marsiling Road since the mid-seventies.

Public amenities such as markets, retail shops, primary schools, playgrounds (HDB introduced see-saws, swings and other play facilities at Woodlands in the mid-seventies) and a sewage treatment plant were added. The Singapore Bus Services (SBS) also deployed almost 60 buses in four services at Woodlands – 180 and 182 to the Central Business District (CBD), 208 to Kranji, and 169 to Ang Mo Kio via Sembawang.

To provide further accessibility and convenience to the residents, a bus interchange was set up at the Woodlands Town Centre in the seventies. It was better remembered in the eighties with its fleet of yellow-and-orange Trans-Island Bus Services (TIBS) buses that mainly plied the routes at the northern part of Singapore.

For motorists, the new Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE), operationalised in 1985, added much convenience with its connection between Woodlands Road and Pan-Island Expressway (PIE). In the late nineties, the completion of Seletar Expressway (SLE) meant that motorists could travel to Yishun, Ang Mo Kio and the central areas of Singapore in shorter times.

The Woodlands Bus Interchange at the Woodlands Town Centre operated for almost two decades until it was replaced in 1996 by the new Woodlands Regional Bus Interchange located at Woodlands Square, which became the new town centre for Woodlands New Town. The new town centre was rapidly matured within the next five years, when the Causeway Point Shopping Centre (opened in 1998), Woodlands Civil Centre (2000) and Woodlands Regional Library (2001) were added.

In the same year of 1996, the Woodlands MRT (Mass Rapid Transit) Station of the North-South Line (NSL) started operation. Both the MRT and bus services began playing an important public transport role between Woodlands and the rest of Singapore.

Besides Woodlands MRT Station, Woodlands is also served by the Admiralty and Marsiling MRT Stations. Two more – Thomson-East Coast Line’s (TEL) Woodlands North and Woodlands South MRT Stations – are added to the new town in early 2020. Overall, Woodlands consists of five MRT stations and nine neighbourhoods (N1 to N9), including the residential estates of Marsiling, Admiralty and Woodgrove.

As more basic public amenities were added, one was still missing by the late seventies – a town garden. For every new towns, it was important to reserve some areas of greenery for leisure and recreational purposes. Hence, the Woodlands Town Garden was created in 1982.

To reflect the mixture of local cultures, the town garden was designed with Chinese pavilions, Malay rest huts, small lakes and playgrounds. Various community activities were organised at the town garden, such as jogging and tree planting. There was even a floating seafood restaurant at Woodlands Town Garden, however it did not last long due to poor business.

Woodlands continued to grow in the nineties. In 1997, it was earmarked to be the regional centre for the northern part of Singapore. The ghost town prediction in its early days of development fortunately did not come true. After almost four decades, Woodlands is now home to more than 68,000 HDB flats and 242,500 residents.

Published: 09 February 2020

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Sembawang Hot Spring’s Long-Awaited Rejuvenation

Posted on January 11, 2020 by

The idea to turn Sembawang Hot Spring into a recreation spot started a century ago. Back then, there were already suggestions to make use of the only natural hot spring on mainland Singapore and convert it to a hydropathic establishment, garden, spa resort or even rest-houses with bathing facilities.

Located off Sembawang Road 12 milestone, or in today’s context, near the junction of Sembawang Road and Gambas Avenue, the hot spring was first discovered in 1908 on a piece of land owned by Seah Eng Keong (1873-undetermined), a local Chinese businessman. The hot spring became known as Seletar Hot Spring or Salitar Hot Spring until the 1940s. The locals, however, preferred to call it semangat ayer (or energy or spirit water in Malay).

Samples of the hot spring water were sent to London for testing. The results were favourable, and Seah Eng Keong’s company Singapore Hot Spring Limited began bottling the water to sell them under the name “Zombun”.

In 1921, Fraser & Neave (F&N) acquired Seah Eng Keong’s company, land and the hot spring. F&N continued the production of the successful Zombun, but at the same also launched a series of other beverages. Those were called Vichy Water and Singa, and were marketed as natural tonic drinks containing saline constituents obtained from the hot spring.

The production plant was abandoned when the Second World War broke out, and the hot spring was taken over by the Japanese military, who built luxury bath amenities for their high ranking officers. Approaching the end of the Japanese Occupation, in 1944, an allied air raid damaged the hot spring’s surroundings and briefly disrupted the flow of the water from its source.

After the war, F&N regained the ownership of the hot spring, which had by then recovered its flow and temperature. F&N planned to redevelop the place but did not proceed due to the projected high cost. The hot spring water was instead used by the nearby kampongs for bathing, washing and cooking of eggs.

In the early sixties, there were again calls to develop and make full use of the medicinal water of Sembawang Hot Spring. F&N again rejected the pleads, citing the difficulty in locating the source of the hot spring by geologists. There were hopes in 1965 when F&N’s subsidiary company in Malaysia, a bottling plant, looked to invest in the redevelopment of the hot spring for recreational purposes and also to bottle the water for local consumption and export. The plan did not materialise in the end, but F&N nevertheless introduced new mineral drinks called Seletaris and Spata.

In 1985, the plot of land where the hot spring was located was acquired by the government. This led to the enquiry by Chiam See Tong, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Potong Pasir, in the parliament in 1989 on the possible redevelopment plans of Sembawang Hot Spring by the Ministry of National Development. No concrete plans were in place, and by the late nineties, the spot was in a state of neglect, even though it remained popular among the public.

Sembawang Hot Spring was closed to the public in early 2002, affected by the construction and drainage improvement works carried by the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF). The extension of Sembawang Air Base got the public worried that the hot spring would be permanently closed or became restricted to public access, prompting many to petition to the MINDEF. The hot spring, however, was reopened three months later.

In 2003, the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) sought interested parties to conduct technical and feasibility studies in converting the Sembawang Hot Spring into a spa resort. Once again, the plan turned futile.

Throughout the 2000s and 2010s, the Sembawang Hot Spring continued to be a popular haunt for many, despite its simple and limited amenities. Dozens of plastic chairs and pails were provided free and shared by the public, who drew the hot water from the metal standpipes for their usage. The original well, a potential safety hazard, has been caged up in a small red-bricked building.

As the hot spring caught attention in the new headlines, many were interested in its “miracle healing” ability, where its steaming water, rich in minerals, is believed to help in the alleviation of ailments such as rheumatism and arthritis, or treatment of foot diseases. But many doctors, when consulted, dashed the hopes by stating there were no evidences that the water from the hot spring could cure illness. The relief the hot spring water gave might be only temporary.

After months of construction, the much anticipated Sembawang Hot Spring Park is officially opened in January 2020. After almost a century, the Sembawang Hot Spring is finally rejuvenated.

Designed with cascading pools and hot water collection points, the new park has been receiving hundreds of daily visitors so far. Naturalised streams, old Banyan trees, planted fruit trees and different species of vibrantly-coloured flowers add to the rustic touch of the park’s environment. Wooden buckets and ladles are provided and shared, and there are plenty of resting areas for visitors to enjoy a warm foot spa or some soft-boiled eggs.

Sembawang Hot Spring Park opens between 7am and 7pm daily.

Published: 11 January 2020

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The Hauntingly Beautiful Terrace Houses of Petain Road

Posted on December 29, 2019 by

There are more than 230 shophouses at Jalan Besar. The rich history of Jalan Besar’s shophouses spanned almost eight decades, ranging from the oldest shophouses that were built in the 1880s, to the post-war ones developed in the sixties. Their various architectural designs also extended from the early traditional types to the late Art Deco styles.

One of the most beautiful and well-preserved ones along Petain Road, made up of 18 double-storey pre-war terrace houses (terrace houses are the residential version of shophouses). Built in the early 1930s, they are the classic examples of Chinese Baroque-style shophouses in Singapore, designed with symmetrical lines, delicate ornaments and ceramic tiles on both the floors and walls.

Petain Road’s terrace houses were initiated by a landlord named Mohamed bin Haji Omar, who first owned a row of shophouses in 1925 at the junction of Jalan Besar and Kitchener Road. Built by J.M. Jackson, a municipal engineer-turned-architect, they were the first three-storey shophouses in the vicinity, and had then-contemporary features such as terraces on the top floor and partial flat roofs.

Architect E.V. Miller was engaged to design the Petain Road terrace houses for Mohamed bin Haji Omar. A Modernist, E.V. Miller preferred designs with rounded lines and streamlined functionality. However, insisted by his client, the Petain Road terrace houses eventually turned out to be of Chinese Baroque style with neo-classical features complimented with Peranakan flavours.

This interesting mix of European and Peranakan styles was demonstrated by the pale green and pink birds and flowers’ plaster ornaments on the facades, floral ceramic floor tiles along the five foot way and elaborated Chinese motifs on the Greco-Roman columns. Originated from Malacca, this design was found nowhere else in the world but Malaysia and Singapore.

Petain Road has had several controversies in the past. Henri Philippe Benoni Omer Joseph Pétain (1856-1951) was the Marshal of France who commanded and led the French army to victory at the Battle of Verdun during the First World War. In 1928, the colonial government’s Municipal Committee decided to name it after the great French hero, as part of the naming exercise of the eleven roads at Jalan Besar after First World War’s famous commanders and battles. The other ten were Kitchener Road, Verdun Road, Sturdee Road, Somme Road, Beatty Road, Mons Road (defunct), Marne Road, Flanders Square, Jutland Road (defunct) and Falkland Road (defunct; there is another Falkland Road at the Sembawang area).

It was a twist of fate by the Second World War, when Philippe Pétain became the Prime Minister of France. No match against a strong and aggressive Nazi Germany, he decided to collaborate with the Axis, allowing France to humiliatingly relegate into a puppet state. After the war, Philippe Pétain was convicted of treason and life imprisonment. Due to this tainted legacy, there have been appeals to rename Petain Road.

Other than the name, Petain Road also had an unsavory reputation of being a red light district in the past. During the early 20th century, this vicinity was commonly known as “kim jio kar” (foot of the banana tree in Hokkien), where vegetable farms were abundant. The farms were later cleared and replaced by the shophouses. The neigbourhood became rowdy and complicated by the 1930s, during the peak popularity of the nearby New World Amusement Park. Rivalling secret Societies, smuggling and extortion became rampant around Petain Road. Some of the shophouses were turned into brothels.

Petain Road continued to be a hotbed of gangsterism and vice that by the early sixties, it was reported in the news that many residents were frustrated by the rising criminal offences and wanted the police to step up their actions.

In 1976, the Preservation of Monuments Board (PMB) collaborated with the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) and Singapore Tourist Promotion Board (STPB) to study the residential districts at Petain Road, Blair Road and Emerald Hill Road with a view to recommend preservation.

The Housing and Development Board (HDB), in the seventies and eighties, developed public housing at several sites in the downtown area, including Petain Road, French Road and Towner Road. At Petain Road, a rental block was built in addition to the cluster of Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) flats situated beside the shophouses, which were fortunately spared from the bulldozers during the construction. The Petain Road SIT and HDB flats had been demolished since, and today, private condominiums Kerrisdale and Sturdee Residences stand at the site.

But in 1979, the Petain Road shophouses again faced the threat of demolition. Kin Ann Pte Ltd, a private developer which bought and owned the land deed in 1977, was planning to replace the shophouses with a six-storey apartment block. In the early eighties, they dismantled the front facades of the three Petain Road shophouses without permit, causing an uproar from the public, architects and heritage enthusiasts. The works were halted by the authority in time to prevent further damages.

In 1981, the Petain Road shophouses were earmarked for preservation. They officially came under the general coverage of the Jalan Besar Conservation Area, designated by the URA, in October 1991. As some of the floor and wall tiles were damaged or lost over time, they had to be replaced by similar pieces made in Vietnam during the restoration projects.

Published: 29 December 2019

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The Fate of Old New Town Secondary School

Posted on December 23, 2019 by

Opposite of Margaret Drive, at the junction of Queensway and Commonwealth Avenue (previously was a roundabout called Queen’s Circus), lies the former campus of New Town Secondary School.

Established in 1965, the same year as Singapore’s independence, the school was initially made up of only a multi-purpose hall building, a four-storey block of classrooms and open-air basketball courts. At the start, it was known as Queensway’s Third Secondary School (the other two being Queensway and Queenstown Secondary Schools), aimed in providing english-medium education to the children of the Queenstown’s residents.

The school was officially named New Town Secondary School in mid-1965, referencing to the relatively new satellite housing estate of Queenstown. The school’s motto was “to forge a better life”, reflecting the goals and objectives of a new state emerged during late fifties and early sixties, hoping that the school and education could forge a better future for its students and, in turn, they could contribute to the nation’s progress and development.

The first year of New Town Secondary School had 45 classes, made up of 73 teachers and 1,819 students. It was one of the first schools in Singapore to provide bilingual education to the students. Many of its upper secondary classes had students from Hua Yi Secondary School, Queensway Secondary School and Tanglin Integrated Secondary School (renamed Tanglin Technical Secondary School in 1969 and Tanglin Secondary School in 1993).

After well-established for almost 20 months, New Town Secondary School was officially opened on 17 September 1966 by Jek Yeun Thong, Minister for Labour and Member of Parliament (MP) for Queenstown.

The importance of Singapore’s secondary education after independence was demonstrated by the school’s distinguished guests of honour. Former Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew and former Singapore President Benjamin Sheares had visited the school in 1967 and 1971 respectively.

In 1969, New Town Secondary School merged with the neigbouring Baharuddin Vocational School, doubling the size of its school compound and increasing its students intake to more than 3,000. By the mid-seventies, New Town Secondary School was the largest secondary school in Singapore.

To accommodate the increased number of students, many of the school amenities were upgraded or expanded. In the seventies and eighties, a running track, grandstand, fitness corner and tennis courts were constructed. Also, long benches and tables were added around the school compound for the students to study and rest. An overhead projector was installed in each classroom. In 1988, New Town Secondary School set up its first computer laboratory.

New Town Secondary School in the seventies was a keen participant in many national campaigns such as “Better Food for Better Health” and “Use Your Hands”, where many of its students competed in inter-school cookery contests, while the rest were involved in the spring cleaning and repair works of their classrooms.

New Town Secondary School achieved a major milestone in the nineties, when it decided to be relocated to a newer and larger premises at Dover Road. The construction of the new campus kicked off in 1996. Two years later, in November 1998, the staffs and students of New Town Secondary School gathered one last time at the old campus to bid farewell to their beloved and familiar school. A tree was removed and shifted to the new Dover Road campus as part of the symbolic move.

Since then, for more than two decades, the old premises of New Town Secondary School had been left vacant or leased as temporary campuses to other educational institutes, such as Clementi Town Secondary School, Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus (CHIJ) Saint Theresa’s Convent School and Assumption English School.

There are no concrete plans for its redevelopment yet, but the piece of land that the old premises of New Town Secondary School is sitting on will likely not be left vacant for too long.

Published: 23 December 2019

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Walking Down the Memory Lane of Margaret Drive

Posted on December 15, 2019 by

Margaret Drive was named after Princess Margaret (Margaret Rose, 1930-2002), the younger sister of Queen Elizabeth II. Constructed in the mid-fifties, Margaret Drive was simply known by the locals as the new road, as it was the main road to serve the newly developed Queenstown housing estate. It ran through Queenstown’s first two neighbourhoods, namely Princess Margaret Estate (later shortened to Princess Estate) and Duchess Estate.

The early Margaret Drive was extended from Alexandra Road to connect with Tanglin Road. It was linked with Queensway at its other end by the early sixties, making the road a total of about 2 km long.

Margaret Drive’s route remained the same for 50 years until 2016, when part of the road was altered due to the Housing and Development Board’s (HDB) residential projects in the vicinity. The modified Margaret Drive is now linked to Kay Siang Road and Dawson Road before continuing its way towards Tanglin Road.

Located along Margaret Drive, the Princess Estate’s early terrace houses were built by the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) in the early and mid-fifties, selling for $7,000 to $7,700 each. Other similar houses, designed with two bedrooms and modern sanitation, were located at Duchess Estate’s Dawson Road.

At the same period, the SIT also built blocks of SIT flats of one-, two- and three-bedroom units at Margaret Drive. The relatively low construction cost of the flats also meant that the quality could be compromised, and various defects such as wall cracks started to show up by the early seventies.

In 1973, the HDB, who took over the role from SIT in 1960, proceeded to redevelop some of the aging residences at Margaret Drive. Several terrace houses (Block 35, 36, 38) and low-rise flats (Block 34, 37, 93, 95, 99) were identified, with their residents served moving out notices. Many of the residents had rented the units for monthly fees of $35 to $40.

The demolition of the SIT flats and houses freed up the space for new redevelopment projects. In the following years, amenities such as supermarket, cinemas, community centre, multi-storey carparks as well as new HDB flats were built to serve the needs of the increasing Queenstown population. The eighties saw another batch of SIT flats torn down, whereas the remaining survived until the late nineties.

While the SIT flats phased out in the vicinity, the taller HDB flats faced their own fate of demolition too, as the likes of Block 39, 39A and 40, built in the mid-sixties, were torn down in the early 2010s to make way for a newer batch of public housing.

Margaret Drive had new pipping and extension to its water networks installed in the late fifties. The street lighting, however, did not arrive until the sixties.

In the early sixties, both sides of Margaret Drive would be busily dotted with street hawkers, providing a convenient source of food for the residents. However, at the same time, they were congesting the pedestrian walkways in a disorderly manner. The poor hygienic conditions of the street hawkers also posed an issue.

The Margaret Drive street hawkers were later disallowed to ply their trades, and their makeshift stores and tents demolished by the authority. Many later found home at the new markets and hawker centres at Margaret Drive and Tanglin Halt established in the late sixties.

Queenstown’s increasing number of residents and motorists often led to heavy traffic conditions and jams during the peak hours in the sixties, especially at the junction of Margaret Drive and Tanglin Road. It was not until the seventies when the installation of traffic lights at the junctions that the situation started to improve.

Schools

More than a dozen schools once co-existed along Margaret Drive in the sixties and seventies. Many of the schools had closed, or merged. Only a handful of them – Queensway Secondary School, Queenstown Primary and Secondary Schools, Rainbow Centre – Margaret Drive School and Lee Kong Chian Gardens School – still stand at Margaret Drive.

1. Queensway Secondary School (1961-Present)

2. Margaret Drive School (1958-1986) – Not to be confused with Rainbow Centre – Margaret Drive School (RCMDS) which caters for students with special needs. It was established at Margaret Drive School’s former premises in 1987.

3. Birkhall Road School (1956-1984) – Merged with Queenstown School in 1984.

4. Queenstown School (1956-Present) – Merged with Birkhall Road School in 1984. Merged again with Mei Chin Primary School and Tanglin Primary School in 2002 to form the new Queenstown Primary School.

5. Strathmore School (early 1960s-1980) – Established next to Birkhall and Queenstown Schools. Shifted further down Margaret Drive and near Kay Siang Road in 1969. Merged with Keng Seng School in 1980.

6. Hua Yi Primary School (1963-1991) – Established as Hua Yi Integrated School. Closed in 1991 due to low student enrolment.

7. Hua Yi Government Chinese Middle School (1956-Present) – Established at Fowlie Road in 1956 as Singapore’s first government Chinese secondary school. Relocated to Margaret Drive in 1958. Renamed Hua Yi Secondary School and moved to Depot Road in 1985. Shifted to Jurong West in 1999.

8. Tanglin Boys’ School (1958-sixties)

9. Tanglin Girls’ School (1957-late eighties) – Merged with the nearby Belvedere Primary School and Xianglin Primary School in the late eighties.

10. Kay Siang Primary School (1969-1983) – Took over Tanglin Boys’ School’s premises in the late sixties. Lasted 15 years until its closure in 1983.

11. Queenstown Secondary School (1956-Present) – Established in 1956 at Jalan Eunos School and moved to Strathmore Avenue as Queenstown Secondary Technical School a year later. Renamed Queenstown Secondary School in 1993 and shifted to a temporary site while its old school buildings were demolished. Moved back to its new school campus in 1997.

12. Townsville Institute (1988-1995) – Established at the former premises of Hua Yi Government Chinese Middle School as a centralised institute for three-year pre-university students studying commerce. Closed in 1995, along with Seletar Institute, as a result of declining student enrolment.

13. Lee Kong Chian Gardens School (1961-Present) – Singapore’s first permanent school for children with intellectual disabilities. Moved to Margaret Drive in 1970 after temporarily housed at Ah Hood Road and Outram. Its old iconic octagonal blocks were demolished in 2000, and replaced by new buildings.

Library

Besides the flats and schools, Margaret Drive had numerous prominent landmarks, one of which is the Queenstown Public Library, Singapore’s first full-time branch library. Initially called Queenstown Branch Library, it was officially opened by former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew on 30 April 1970.

Costing more than $1 million in construction, the double-storey library was designed in Modern style, with unique features such as a “bow-tie” motif along its parapets, sun-shading block and large glass windows that allowed the reading rooms to be naturally lit.

At the start, the library offered as many as 50,000 books – 25,000 of them were children books – allowing the population living in the vicinity who could not afford to buy books to have free access to reading. The library also supplemented the mobile library services that used to ply along Margaret Drive. By the early seventies, Queenstown Branch Library had almost 13,000 members. Between 1,500 and 2,000 books were loaned out on a daily basis, a testimonial of its high popularity.

Equipped with information counter, large reference area, reading room and discussion corners, Queenstown Branch Library was the main venue for many activities in the seventies, including various crime prevention talks, photo competition exhibitions, career fairs, guitar lessons and films on awareness of drug abuse. In 1973, the library’s operating hours were extended to 10pm for four days a week, due to popular demands.

By 1978, Queenstown Branch Library had 48,000 members. Its success was replicated at other new towns and housing estates, such as Toa Payoh, Jurong, Kampong Chai Chee, Joo Chiat and Kaki Bukit. Overall, the National Library, its various branches and mobile library services achieved almost 350,000 memberships by the end of the seventies.

For the many schools along Margaret Drive in the seventies and eighties, the library provided a convenient venue for their students to revise homework or do researches on different topics after classes.

In 1978, Queenstown Branch Library was upgraded with air-conditioning, giving additional comfort to the many library-goers. The library was further refurbished in 2003, with installation of elevator, new lighting and cafeteria. The library was renamed Queenstown Public Library in the nineties.

Along with 74 other buildings in Singapore, the 43-year-old Queenstown Public Library was included in the conservation list of Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) Master Plan 2014.

Polyclinic

The former Queenstown Polyclinic (known as Queenstown Combined Clinic at the beginning) at Margaret Drive was officially opened on 13 January 1963 by former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. It was Singapore’s first polyclinic, and was established to provide subsidised affordable healthcare and medical services to the residents of Queenstown.

Queenstown Polyclinic comprised an outpatient clinic, psychiatric clinic, maternity centre and a healthcare services outlet for children. A private dental clinic was also added in 1984. In 1986, the polyclinic was upgraded for more consultation rooms and to improve on its registration processes.

Queenstown Polyclinic was involved in many government’s medical programs in the seventies, such as the free vaccine for children’s immunity against smallpox, measles and diphtheria. By the late seventies and early eighties, polyclinics became essential amenities in the newly developed housing estates, including Clementi and Ang Mo Kio. There were as many as 12 polyclinics in Singapore in 1980, but Queenstown Polyclinic remained the only one to be opened during Sundays and public holidays.

In 1985, Queenstown Polyclinic underwent another round of renovations. After completion, it became the main medical centre servicing both the Queenstown residents and those living in the Holland Road area, taking over the functions of Chip Bee Outpatient Dispensary and Holland Road Maternity and Child Health Centre.

Medical services remained affordable at polyclinics in the late eighties – it cost $2.50 for consultation and 50c for every items of medicine prescribed. However, the waiting time could be exasperatedly long even after the enhancements to the registration processes.

Queenstown Polyclinic was relocated to Stirling Road in 2007, and its old Margaret Drive premises was temporarily leased out as foreign work dormitories for several years. Currently vacated, there are no news of any conservation or redevelopment plans of the former Queenstown Polyclinic yet.

Hawker Centre

The Commonwealth Avenue Food Centre, or sometimes fondly known as Margaret Drive Hawker Centre, was built in 1969 to accommodate the street hawkers. The makan place was a popular venue for the Margaret Drive residents, who patronised it for their morning doses of kopi and savoured their favourite fish ball noodles and chicken rice during lunches and dinners.

By the late 2000s, as more Margaret Drive residents moved out and old flats vacated, it was clear that the double-storey hawker centre, housed in block 40A, would not last for long. Even then, it remained popular among diners from the nearby factories and offices. In 2011, the 42-year-old hawker centre was eventually closed for good, and was subsequently demolished.

Its site was left vacant for several years before a new residential project – SkyResidence @Dawson – kicked off recently. Its completion will be accompanied by a new hawker centre called Dawson Hawker Centre.

Market

Other than Commonwealth Avenue Food Centre, the Block 38 Commonwealth Avenue Wet Market, a stone’s away from the hawker centre, provided another alternative for food. It was also the main market for the residents to buy fresh produce, vegetables, eggs and other necessities.

Known as the “coffin market” by the residents due to the distinguished parabolic shape of its roof, the market, built by SIT in 1960, was the first wet market to be conserved by URA. It is also one of the two conserved Margaret Drive landmarks, along with the Queenstown Public Library.

Today, the wet market no longer functions, having closed back in 2005. There will be redevelopment plans to the building, one of which is restoration to a wet market place.

Cinemas

Queenstown welcomed its first cinemas when the Venus Theatre and Golden City Theatre opened at Margaret Drive in late 1965. Screening popular Hokkien, Cantonese and Teochew movies, the cinemas were a hit among the residents of Queenstown. Both Venus Theatre and Golden City Theatre arguably enjoyed their golden periods in the seventies, but would suffer their declines a decade later.

Facing stiff competition from newer neighbourhood cinemas and the rise of colour television programs, the cinemas’ revenues dropped and had to end their businesses by the mid-eighties. Their buildings have been occupied by the Church of Our Saviour and The Fisherman of Christ Fellowship since then.

A third cinema in the vicinity fared better. The twin-screen Queenstown/Queensway Cinema was opened in 1977 and lasted more than two decades until 1999. It was the go-to place for many Margaret Drive and Queenstown youngsters and dating couples, especially in the eighties, when Hong Kong kungfu flicks and Taiwanese romance films were permanent fixtures on the screens.

The cinema also had a neighbouring bowling alley, known as Queenstown Bowl. In the later years, a karaoke lounge was also added. Both of those amenities provided additional entertainment options for those who had finished the late night movies.

But the late nineties saw the popularity of the cinema and bowling alley declined along with the population of the Margaret Drive estate. They were subsequently shut down, and were left vacated for years. In 2013, the former buildings of the old school cinema and bowling alley were finally demolished. A new Queenstown Mall will be constructed at their former sites in early 2021.

Emporium

Opened on 9 September 1967, Tah Chung Emporium was the undisputed number one shopping venue for the residents of Queenstown. It was housed in a three-storey building, numbered 40B, located between Commonwealth Avenue and Margaret Drive.

While the emporium occupied the building’s second floor, the ground floor was reserved for the numerous street hawkers formerly from Margaret Drive and Commonweath Avenue. On the third floor was Golden Crown, a popular dim sum and Chinese cuisine restaurant.

The emporium, together with the neighouring market, hawker centres, cinemas, post office, library and polyclinic, served as the unofficial self-sufficient town centre for Queenstown from the seventies to the nineties. An aging neighbourhood and declining resident population, however, brought an closure to Tah Chung Emporium in the nineties, and its three-storey building was subsequently demolished in 1999.

Mosque

Located at the junction of Margaret Drive and Tanglin Road, Masjid Jamek was constructed in the early sixties to cater for the religious needs of the Muslim residents and workers at Queenstown. Upon its completion, it was officially opened on 25 December 1964 by Mohamed Khir Johari, the former Malayan Minister for Agriculture and Co-operatives.

The single-storey mosque was designed in traditional Javanese style and could accommodate as many as 400 worshippers. Masjid Jamek’s most distinguished feature is its tall minaret with a pitched roof, situated above the prayer room.

The mosque also used to have a miniature garden filled with tropical decorative plants and wooden fences, but it had to make way for a drainage when the road next to the mosque was raised. This was due to the frequent flooding in the area during the seventies and eighties.

In some cases, Masjid Jamek was affected so badly that its compound would be filled with water at knee-deep levels. The mosque personnel had to clear the flooded premises by painstaking scooping the water out. The situation only improved after the upgrading of the Alexandra Canal.

Previously painted in bright blue colour, Masjid Jamsek formed a striking contrast with the tall reddish HDB flats in its background. The mosque has been changed to a beige and brown tones recently. Today, it conducts religious lectures on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays as well as madrasah classes during the weekends.

Prison

With imposing watch towers and tall walls, the Queenstown Remand Prison was perhaps the only unapproachable landmark along Margaret Drive. It was built in the mid-sixties as the replacement for the old Outram Prison, which was demolished and redeveloped into Outram Park housing estate.

Queenstown Remand Prison was opened in 1966 by then Minister for Culture and Social Affairs Othman Wok. It was situated at the end of a short minor road called Jalan Penjara, off Margaret Drive.

The 388-cell prison was used for holding inmates on short sentences or those waiting to be transferred to Changi Prison. Typically, three to four inmates were locked in one cell, equipped with squatting toilet with a flush system. The prison also had blocks of quarters as accommodation for the prison wardens.

Queenstown Remand Prison was closed in August 2009, after almost 43 years of operation. There were suggestions to convert it into a hostel, studio, artists’ gallery or even a youth campsite. But the premises were eventually demolished a year later. Its site is currently an empty piece of land waiting to be redeveloped.

Rain Trees

Last but not least, there are numerous majestic rain trees along Margaret Drive that have grown, flourished and witnessed the past peacefulness and recent changes at Margaret Drive. It is a pity that a number of the decade-old rain trees, many of them more than 50 years old, have to be cut and removed due to the widening of the road and residential development of the vicinity.

Margaret Drive is currently undergoing rejuvenation. Other than SkyResidence @Dawson, several HDB residential projects are expected to be completed by the end of 2020. These include SkyOasis, SkyParc and Dawson Vista, which will add more public housing units to the already completed SkyTerrace and SkyVille HDB flats in the vicinity.

Published: 15 December 2019

Updated: 18 December 2019

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The Remaking of Jalan Kayu’s Church of The Epiphany

Posted on December 8, 2019 by

The familiar old white building of the Church of The Epiphany, located off the roundabout outside the former Royal Air Force (RAF) Seletar (later Seletar Camp) main gates, had been demolished.

An Anglican church at Jalan Kayu, the Church of The Epiphany was dedicated on 01 May 1967. Its historical links went back further to the early 20th century, during the construction of the Seletar Airbase. Back then, the airbase’s Indian labourers had their worshipping and religious rituals carried out in a small attap shed.

During the Second World War, the prayers were moved to a shed with a metal roof along Lorong Thanggam. In 1965, with the assistance from Christ Church, a new chapel was built at its present site of 407 Jalan Kayu. Blessed by Reverend C.K. Sansbury, the Bishop of Singapore and Malaya, the foundation stone was laid, on 01 January 1966, by Group Captain R.W.G. Freer of the RAF.

For 52 years, the old Church of The Epiphany had witnessed the changes of its surroundings. Its former neighbours – the likes of Jalan Kayu Village, Jalan Kayu Bus Terminal and Jalan Kayu Primary School – had long vanished into history. Its relatively undisturbed environment came to an end in the nineties when the Tampines Expressway (TPE) and Sengkang New Town were constructed.

As for the Church of The Epiphany, it will be undergoing massive changes too. The demolition of its iconic white single-storey building will pave the way for the development of a new five-storey church building, expected to be completed by late 2020. Meanwhile, its church members will continue to hold their prayer sessions at the nearby Abundant Grace Presbyterian Church along Jalan Kayu.

Published: 08 December 2019

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