Katong News Agency

Last month, I said goodbye to a bookshop in Bras Basah Complex, which was closing down after 41 years.

Now, another shop in Katong is set to cease operations after almost seven decades: Katong News Agency at 350 Tanjong Katong Road.

Katong News Agency, which opened in 1955, is shutting down after 67 years in business.

The 1,386 sq ft, two-storey shophouse was sold for $4.2 million, or at $3,029 per sq ft, in December.

The last day of business will be Aug 31, said owner Mr Abdul Samad, 66.

People familiar with Tanjong Katong will remember how the shop on 350 Tanjong Katong Road was once popular with parents and students for its extensive range of school textbooks, assessment books, novels, magazines and stationery.

During the December school holidays, Katong News Agency would be bustling with parents snapping up textbooks and stationery for their children for the new school term.

Often, the shop stayed open till late into the night, sometimes closing at midnight, recalled Mr Samad.

His father, Mr Abdul Salam, came from India and started Katong News Agency.

In the beginning, it was a general provision shop selling groceries, cosmetics and books.

In the 1960s, when Tanjong Katong Girls’ School, which is located directly opposite the shop, started holding classes in the evenings, Mr Salam saw the opportunity to sell textbooks to those attending the night classes, said Mr Samad.

Gradually, Mr Salam switched to selling books to cater to students in nearby schools.

Mr Samad said his father was paying rent of $100 a month until 1972, when he bought over the freehold unit for under $300,000.

The iconic shop had catered to generations of students from nearby schools, including Tanjong Katong Girls’ School, Tanjong Katong Technical School, Dunman High School and Chung Cheng High School (Main), in the 1960s to 1990s.

Business plunged when three of the schools moved out of Tanjong Katong Road in the late 1990s.

In 2001, Katong News Agency stopped selling textbooks and was converted into a minimart selling household items, snacks, stationery and toys. By then, Mr Salam had already left the business in the care of his three children.

“During the good times, parents who lived in other parts of Singapore would also travel here to get the assessment books for their children,” recalled Mr Samad, who started running the store in 2006.

“I am very sad to retire. I have been running the store seven days a week since I took over the business. My customers are all very nice. Some of them who had moved out of the area would still return to visit the shop,” he added.

***

Pastries and snacks on sale outside Katong News Agency.

Entering Katong News Agency.

I took a closer look at the old floor tiles.

The adorable handmade signs with a dozen fonts!

The front counter.

For printing services, the shop had an old photocopying machine, with an ancient laptop on it.

The interior of the shop. Some shelves were already empty, as the shop begins to wind down.

The stationery shelf brought me back to childhood visits to bookshops.

Old-school wooden rulers - they made for painful palm slaps.

As expected, there were random items in random corners.

The little touches made all the difference - such as the handwritten price labels.

More memories of my childhood - the cheap tabletop games such as Ludo and checkers.

The last day of Katong News Agency is 31 August.

Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal

In Singapore, there are three types of public transport facilities that serve as the start and end points of bus routes: Integrated Transport Hubs (ITHs), bus interchanges, and bus terminals.

Integrated Transport Hubs, as the name suggests, integrate bus interchanges, MRT stations, and commercial and residential facilities. All are fully air-conditioned and connected seamlessly to one another. There are 11 ITHs in Singapore, the newest being Yishun (opened 2019) and Woodlands (opened 2021).

Bus interchanges are relatively large facilities handling many bus routes, usually located near or next to MRT stations, allowing for convenient bus-rail transfers. Excluding ITHs, there are 17 bus interchanges in Singapore.

Bus terminals are relatively smaller facilities with fewer bus routes. While some are near MRT stations, others are not, and may serve just a small area of the island. In terms of infrastructure, they are more spartan and basic than bus interchanges. There are 18 bus terminals in Singapore, of which 16 are on the main island, while two are in Sentosa.

The historical trend is for bus terminals to be closed and replaced by bus interchanges, and bus interchanges to be upgraded to ITHs. Over time, I expect the number of bus terminals to drop, and the number of ITHs to grow.

I recently checked out the Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal, an example of a bus terminal which could be closed and replaced by a nearby bus interchange in the future.

Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal occupies the rough quadrilateral bounded by Lorong 1 Geylang, Sims Avenue, the Kallang River, and Geylang Road (below).

Credit: Singapore Land Authority.

The bus terminal is next to a historic bridge over the Kallang River, which was first completed in 1842. The bridge enabled a country road to be extended eastward from the Town of Singapore, across the river, to the eastern end of the island.

The country road was named Kallang Road and Geylang Road on either side of the bridge, and ended as Changi Road at Changi Village 13 miles away.

The bridge was later named Sir Arthur’s Bridge after Sir Arthur Young, Governor of the Straits Settlements from 1911 to 1920 (below).

Sir Arthur’s Bridge in 1987. Credit: Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore,

In the early 1970s, Sims Avenue was extended westward to Geylang Road, to ease congestion on the busy Kallang-Geylang artery connecting the City to the eastern suburbs. This formed the plot of land on which Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal currently sits. At the end of the decade, Sims Avenue was further realigned westward to join Kallang Road via a bridge over the Kallang River.

The area in 1975. The extension of Sims Avenue is in green; Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal was eventually built on the blue area.

The year 1975 was notable for the launch of two major transport schemes in Singapore.

The Park and Ride scheme was introduced to encourage motorists to park their cars at the fringe of the Central Business District (CBD), and finish their journeys into the CBD by bus. Meanwhile, the Area Licensing Scheme (ALS) was also rolled out, charging motorists for driving into the CBD. The authorities hoped these two schemes would reduce peak-hour road congestion in and around the CBD.

An ALS gantry over Bencoolen Street. Credit: Courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

For the Park and Ride scheme, car parks were needed ringing the fringe of the CBD. The quadrilateral plot by the Kallang River was chosen for one such car park, named the Geylang Fringe Car Park, or Fringe Car Park A, which opened in 1975.

Next to the car park, shuttle buses took motorists to Shenton Way, Bras Basah Road, and Orchard Road. These buses were part of the City Shuttle Service (CSS), operated by Singapore Shuttle Bus Pte. Ltd (SSB). SSB was acquired by Trans-Island Bus Services (TIBS) in 1987, itself acquired by SMRT in 2001.

The bus station for the CSS in Geylang Fringe Car Park, in 1975. In the background, to the right, was Block 6 Upper Boon Keng Road, which was demolished in 2009. Credit: SPH Media Trust.

A CSS bus in 1975. Credit: Ministry of Information and the Arts Collection, courtesy of National Archives of Singapore.

In 1977, the Singapore Bus Service (SBS) moved from the nearby Lorong 5 Geylang Bus Terminal into the Geylang Fringe Car Park. The latter was henceforth known as the Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal. SBS was eventually rebranded as SBS Transit in 2001.

The Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) was rolled out from 1987. Kallang MRT Station opened across Sims Avenue from the bus terminal on 4 November 1989, allowing a bus-rail connection.

Park and Ride, and the City Shuttle Service, never really took off. The latter was withdrawn in 2007, and the facilities abandoned. Sadly, they were demolished between 2011 and 2014 for the widening of Sims Avenue from four to six lanes.

In 2011, the CSS bus station was still at the junction of Lorong 1 Geylang and Sims Avenue. Credit: Google Maps.

The bus station disappeared by 2014. Credit: Google Maps.

After the Bus Contracting Model was introduced in 2014, Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal was placed under the Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package, as several of its bus services started in Woodlands and Yishun.

SMRT managed the bus terminal from 2016 to 2021, thereafter handing it over to Tower Transit Singapore, after it won the tender to operate the Sembawang-Yishun Bus Package to 2026.

***

Like other bus terminals, Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal has simple facilities. There are two container offices, one for SBS Transit, one for Tower Transit, both painted in the respective companies’ liveries.

Kallang MRT Station can be seen in the background.

There is one bus stop which serves as the start point for nine bus services.

SMRT Bus 961M picking up passengers at the bus stop. It ends at Woodlands Temporary Bus Interchange.

Buses parked at the terminal.

Tucked away next to the Tower Transit office is the bus terminal shrine. I wonder how long it has been there.

The shrine has a Tua Pek Kong, curiously shielded - has someone tried to steal him before?

Tua Pek Kong may not be here forever - he may have to move with the bus terminal, perhaps in a few years, when a BTO project next to Kallang MRT Station is completed. Kallang Horizon is estimated to be completed in 2028, and it will come with a bus interchange, which should take the place of the bus terminal.

Until then, Lorong 1 Geylang Bus Terminal lives on as a stop for transport history.

Entering Verdun House

In April, a mixed-use building in the Jalan Besar area was sold en bloc.

Verdun House, a four-storey development made up of four shops and food and beverage outlets on the ground floor, and 12 apartments in the upper floors, was sold to Fragrance Group for $55.1 million.

This was the building’s third attempt at a collective sale since 2018.

Verdun House was completed in 1982, making it 40 years old this year - but it will not last much longer.

The building, at the corner of Verdun Road and Sam Leong Road, was named after the former.

Verdun Road itself was named in the late 1920s, as part of a municipal naming exercise to commemorate World War I, which had ended just a decade before. This is shared in my book, Jalan Singapura.

At the time, Singapore was a British possession, so it was par for the course for the authorities to name new roads after all things British.

Hence, after a cluster of new roads were laid down in the Jalan Besar area, from Lavender Street in the north to Syed Alwi Road in the south, they were named after prominent World War I battle sites in which British and French forces fought, or British and French generals and admirals who had served.

Generals and admirals included Allenby, Beatty, Foch, Fisher, French, Hamilton, Horne, Jellicoe, Kitchener, Maude, Petain, Plumer, Sturdee, and Townshend.

Horatio Herbert Kitchener (1850-1916), British Army.

Henri Philippe Pétain (1856-1951), French Army.

Battle sites included Flanders, Marne, Mons, Somme, and of course Verdun. Falkland and Jutland were naval battle sites.

French troops fighting at the Battle of Verdun, 1916.

The HMS Queen Mary blowing up during the Battle of Jutland, 1916.

After almost a hundred years, these roads have held up pretty well in the face of continuous urban renewal and redevelopment.

This is a map of the Jalan Besar area in 1932; the World War I commemorative roads are highlighted blue.

Base picture credit: Survey Department, Singapore.

This is the same area in 2022. The roads which have remained the same are highlighted blue; the roads which have changed in terms of name or alignment are highlighted red.

Base picture credit: Streetdirectory.com.

Here is a list of the roads and how they have changed since the 1920s:

• Allenby Road - remained the same.

• Beatty Road - lengthened to Race Course Road; parallel channels were merged into one; part of Jutland Road was renamed Beatty Road; the easternmost part of Beatty Road was renamed Beatty Lane.

• Foch Road - same.

• Fisher Road - renamed Tyrwhitt Road (after another Royal Navy admiral) in 1932; remained the same.

• French Road - partially realigned to accommodate flats.

• Hamilton Road - same.

• Horne Road - same.

• Jellicoe Road - realigned to accommodate developments such as flats, V Hotel Lavender, and Jalan Besar Community Club.

• Kitchener Road - the stretch southeast of King George’s Road was expunged for flats.

• Maude Road - the stretch southeast of King George’s Road was expunged for flats.

• Petain Road - same.

• Plumer Road - same.

• Sturdee Road - sliced in two and partially expunged to accommodate condominiums; the western part was renamed Sturdee Road North; part of the eastern half was realigned; part of Jutland Road was renamed Sturdee Road.

• Townshend Road - lengthened to Kelantan Lane.

• Flanders Square - there were two Flanders Squares; both were partially expunged for City Square Mall and City Square Residences; the eastern one was renamed Kitchener Link.

• Marne Road - most of it was expunged for City Square Mall.

• Mons Road - expunged. The place name has disappeared.

• Somme Road - much of it was expunged for City Square Residences.

• Verdun Road - the stretch north of Kitchener Road was renamed Kitchener Link.

• Falkland Road - expunged for Umar Pulavar Tamil Language Centre. The place name has disappeared.

• Jutland Road - renamed Beatty and Sturdee roads. The place name has disappeared.

This stretch of Sturdee Road and Beatty Road was once Jutland Road. Credit: Google Maps.

***

Back to Verdun House.

I paid a visit to the building to take in the architecture of the 1980s.

There were several restaurants and a 24-hour minimart on the ground floor.

How did one access the upper-floor apartments? By going behind the building. There were driveways off Verdun Road and Sam Leong Road which allowed vehicles to drive in and out.

There were lots for apartment owners and tenants to park their vehicles.

The building was organised in an interesting fashion: There were two separate staircases leading up to the fourth floor. For the first staircase, there were two units on each floor; the first floor had Units 6 and 8, the second floor had 6A and 8A; the third floor had 6B and 8B; the top floor had 6C and 8C. For the second staircase, the first floor had Units 10 and 12; the second floor had 10A and 12A; the third floor had 10B and 12B; the top floor had 10C and 12C.

In all, Verdun House had four addresses: 6, 8, 10, and 12 Verdun Road.

Every lift landing and staircase had old-school wall and floor tiles.

Old-school lift buttons...

... and old-school lifts.

Units 6C and 8C at the top floor. The lift landings were small and claustrophobic.

Verdun Road - almost a hundred years old and named in honour of a bloody battlefield half a world away - will live on, but its flagship landmark will be replaced soon.