Sunday, May 17, 2009

Disappearing Singapore


When I heard that yet another of Singapore's heritage landmarks was going to be torn down I thought I'd better take a few snaps. I intended to go back and ask to photograph inside but of course time passed and I forgot. And today as I drove past the building site where it once stood I instantly regretted having let it slip my mind. When the New Seventh Storey Hotel was was established in 1953 it was the tallest structure in the Beach Road area and, hard to believe today, it offered views of the shoreline which is now considerably further away due to much land reclamation of the past few decades. In recent years the hotel had rather oddly stood on its own, surrounded by a flat grassy area where once-crowded shophouses used to be. Its fate was problably sealed a long time ago, just a temporary stay of execution saving it from the bulldozers. My father will be sad to hear of its demise - he used to tell stories of his time on National Service in Singapore in the late 1950's. He told of having 'Taxi Dances' at the Seventh Storey Hotel. It all sounded very exotic to a young boy growing up in Glasgow in the sixties.

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