April 24, 2024
John and I visited Singapore last summer. In that visit, we concentrated on Chinatown and Little India. For our brief few hours in the city, we took a Guru Walk that showed us the historic Malay district (Kampong Gelam) and Burgis Street.
Anyone that visited the infamous Burgis Street in the 1970’s-90’s knew it as a raucous, wild and complete antithesis to the straight-laced city’s reputation. It started as a red light district in the early 1900’s, and then to partying and nightclubs as the decades progressed. When the Singapore’s elected members decided to close it – it met with a public outcry. The public liked having a little corner of wild in their strictly organized city. To appease them, the government said they would “move” the street – so there is a Burgis Street today, a few blocks from the old, but it lacks any of the energy and wildness of the past. A modern mall covers the ground of the bordellos and clubs, capped by a lovely hotel who’s facade incorporates some of the turn of the century architecture.
The spirit of Burgis lives on in street art. The city strictly regulates upkeep of the buildings and its colors, but the area near Burgis along Haji Street incorporates interesting murals and art.
One of the most interesting buildings in the area was completed in 2012, but looks like it leapt out of the 1920’s. The locals call it The Gotham Building (real name is Parkview Square). The exterior has sculptures by Salvador Dali and Fernando Botero…
The Interior gave us a reprieve from the heat and humidity of the day- and houses one of the top ten bars in the world – the Atlas Bar, known to have over 1300 types of gin (unfortunately not open at the time – but some friends visited before returning to the ship that day).
History lesson
Singapore, an island at the end of the Malay peninsula, originally was home to fishing communities known as the Orang Laut that took advantage of its harbors. The name of Singapore came from a Sumatran Prince who thought he saw a lion on the island – Singa – and “pura” for city (as a side note, there is no archeological evidence of lions on the island).
Sir Stamford Raffles established the English port in 1819 to create a port town for British ships along the Indian spice trade route to go along with the other 2 British settlements on the peninsula (Penang and Malacca). The city quickly grew in both size and importance, by 1840 it was a key port in the Indian and Asian spice trade. The city needed workers, and people from China, India and the Malay peninsula crowded onto the island looking for work and establishing their own businesses. The British held the city until it was taken by the Japanese in WWII (which Winston Churchill referred to as the greatest capitulation in British history). Post war, the city struggled, but a rising sense of need for Independence surged. Singapore earned self governance in 1959, and joined the Federation of Malaysia in 1963 – but that was short lived, and Singapore became an independent city state in August 1965.
With only its own interests to follow, Singapore threw itself into manufacturing, bringing in foreign investors, then pivoted to technology by the mid 1970’s. In 1989, they were the world’s #1 supplier of disc drives and parts. In the 1990’s, banking and financial services became the prime economic driver, and it continues to be a key port in the region.