Pagoda Street
Encyclopedia
Street
A street is a paved public thoroughfare in a built environment. It is a public parcel of land adjoining buildings in an urban context, on which people may freely assemble, interact, and move about. A street can be as simple as a level patch of dirt, but is more often paved with a hard, durable...
located in Chinatown
Chinatown, Singapore
Singapore's Chinatown is an ethnic neighbourhood featuring distinctly Chinese cultural elements and a historically concentrated ethnic Chinese population. Chinatown is located within the larger district of Outram....
within the Outram Planning Area
Outram, Singapore
Outram is a district in Singapore, within the Central Area, relatively near the prominent city centre and financial districts, but is nearer the border of the Central Area, and outside the Downtown Core. Outram is served by extensive public transport, including SBS Transit and a Mass Rapid Transit ...
in Singapore
Singapore
Singapore , officially the Republic of Singapore, is a Southeast Asian city-state off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, north of the equator. An island country made up of 63 islands, it is separated from Malaysia by the Straits of Johor to its north and from Indonesia's Riau Islands by the...
. The road links New Bridge Road
New Bridge Road
New Bridge Road is a one-way road located within the Central Area in Singapore.New Bridge Road starts at the Coleman Bridge to the south of the Singapore River and extends into Chinatown within the Outram Planning Area, before joining with Eu Tong Sen Street and Kampong Bahru Road within the Bukit...
and South Bridge Road
South Bridge Road
South Bridge Road is a road south of Singapore River in Chinatown, Singapore which starts from Elgin Bridge and ends at the junction of Neil Road, Tanjong Pagar Road and Maxwell Road....
, but has since been converted to a pedestrian mall
Pedestrian mall
Pedestrian malls in the United States are also known as pedestrian streets and are the most common form of pedestrian zone in large cities in the United States. It is a street lined with storefronts and closed off to most automobile traffic...
with the construction of an entrance to Chinatown MRT Station
Chinatown MRT Station
Chinatown MRT Station ' is a Mass Rapid Transit station on the North East Line and upcoming Downtown Line in Singapore. On the North East Line, it lies between the Outram Park and Clarke Quay MRT stations and between Telok Ayer and River Valley on the Downtown Line. It is directly below and serves...
at its New Bridge Road end.
The Chinatown Heritage Centre, located on Pagoda Street, provides an overview of the life of early Chinese
Chinese people
The term Chinese people may refer to any of the following:*People with Han Chinese ethnicity ....
settlers in Chinatown.
Etymology and history
Pagoda Street was named after the pagodaPagoda
A pagoda is the general term in the English language for a tiered tower with multiple eaves common in Nepal, India, China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Some pagodas are used as Taoist houses of worship. Most pagodas were built to have a religious function, most commonly Buddhist,...
-like gopuram
Gopuram
A Gopuram or Gopura, is a monumental tower, usually ornate, at the entrance of any temple, especially in Southern India. This forms a prominent feature of Koils, Hindu temples of the Dravidian style. They are topped by the kalasam, a bulbous stone finial...
of Sri Mariamman Temple
Sri Mariamman Temple
The Sri Mariamman Temple is Singapore's oldest Hindu temple. It is an agamic temple, built in the Dravidian style. Located at No. 244 South Bridge Road, in the downtown Chinatown district, the temple serves mainly South Indian Tamil Hindu Singaporeans in the city-state...
, the largest and oldest Hindu temple
Hindu temple
A Mandir, Devalayam, Devasthanam, or a Hindu temple is a place of worship for followers of Hinduism...
in Singapore, located on the South Bridge Road end of the street. This temple was originally built in 1827 of attap and wood
Wood
Wood is a hard, fibrous tissue found in many trees. It has been used for hundreds of thousands of years for both fuel and as a construction material. It is an organic material, a natural composite of cellulose fibers embedded in a matrix of lignin which resists compression...
. The present structure was erected in 1843 and has been altered and renovated several times since.
In the early days, Pagoda Street was known for its opium
Opium
Opium is the dried latex obtained from the opium poppy . Opium contains up to 12% morphine, an alkaloid, which is frequently processed chemically to produce heroin for the illegal drug trade. The latex also includes codeine and non-narcotic alkaloids such as papaverine, thebaine and noscapine...
smoking dens. This street was probably one of the stations of the coolie
Coolie
Historically, a coolie was a manual labourer or slave from Asia, particularly China, India, and the Phillipines during the 19th century and early 20th century...
trade between the 1850s and the 1880s. One well-known firm for the coolie trade here was Kwong Hup Yuen, previously Kian Seng Heng Bicycle Trader of 37 Pagoda Street but now a furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
shop, hence the Cantonese refer to this street as kwong hup yuan kai. By the turn of the twentieth century, many shophouse
Shophouse
A shophouse is a vernacular architectural building type that is commonly seen in areas such as urban Southeast Asia. This hybrid building form characterises the historical centres of most towns and cities in the region.- Design and features :...
s along the street became coolie lodging
Lodging
Lodging is a type of residential accommodation. People who travel and stay away from home for more than a day need lodging for sleep, rest, safety, shelter from cold temperatures or rain, storage of luggage and access to common household functions.Lodgings may be self catering in which case no...
places. In 1901, for example, there were 12 coolie lodging houses located here.
By the 1950s, the shophouses here were mainly involved in retail
Retail
Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...
trade
Trade
Trade is the transfer of ownership of goods and services from one person or entity to another. Trade is sometimes loosely called commerce or financial transaction or barter. A network that allows trade is called a market. The original form of trade was barter, the direct exchange of goods and...
and services. The architecture
Architecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
of the shophouses on Pagoda Street and other parts of Chinatown originates from the Raffles Town Plan of 1822
Jackson Plan
The Jackson Plan of 1822, also known as the "Plan of the Town of Singapore", was an urban plan for Singapore drawn up to maintain some order in the urban development of the fledgling but thriving colony founded just three years earlier...
, which stipulated the material that should be used to build the shophouses as well as the need to have covered walkway
Walkway
In US English, a walkway is a composite or umbrella term for all engineered surfaces or structures which support the use of trails. These include sidewalks, footbridges, stiles, stairs, ramps, paseos or tunnels...
s of five-foot width (hence known as "five-foot ways".
The area later became well known for textile
Textile
A textile or cloth is a flexible woven material consisting of a network of natural or artificial fibres often referred to as thread or yarn. Yarn is produced by spinning raw fibres of wool, flax, cotton, or other material to produce long strands...
and tailor
Tailor
A tailor is a person who makes, repairs, or alters clothing professionally, especially suits and men's clothing.Although the term dates to the thirteenth century, tailor took on its modern sense in the late eighteenth century, and now refers to makers of men's and women's suits, coats, trousers,...
shops. The street is now part of the Chinatown Historic District gazette
Gazette
A gazette is a public journal, a newspaper of record, or simply a newspaper.In English- and French-speaking countries, newspaper publishers have applied the name Gazette since the 17th century; today, numerous weekly and daily newspapers bear the name The Gazette.Gazette is a loanword from the...
d for conservation
Architectural conservation
Architectural conservation describes the process through which the material, historical, and design integrity of mankind's built heritage are prolonged through carefully planned interventions. The individual engaged in this pursuit is known as an architectural conservator...
.
The street is known as kit ling a le pai au in Hokkien
Min Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
, meaning "behind the kling place of worship
Place of worship
A place of worship or house of worship is an establishment or her location where a group of people comes to perform acts of religious study, honor, or devotion. The form and function of religious architecture has evolved over thousands of years for both changing beliefs and architectural style...
". Kling is a reference to India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n.