the liberty to lift it from our private Yippie Blogsite as it has a map of Lorong 40. However, look closely and you cannot find "Siang Lim Park" anywhere on the map. Upto 1995 or thereabouts, it was still there as I had captured a couple of snapshots before my parents and other homes were demolished..for redevelopment.Siang Lim Park were actually two portions, one on the left of Lor 40 ( now the Sunny Spring ) and the other on the right ( now the Waterina ). The pre-war terraced houses were built by wealthy Arab merchants who owned the land. The rent for our corner unit was $34.10 cents per month. You may think this is peanuts today. But it was still quite a sum of money in pre-war days! After the war, the Rent Control Act was in place and the rent was frozen at that sum if you were still the original tenant. My parents were original tenants until the very end. On several occasions, I personally went down to Arab Street to pay the rent on their behalf.
Don't miss my next post which comes with a hand-drawn map, accompanied by unk Dicko's vivid recollections of Siang Lim Park.
Friday, February 2, 2007
Siang Lim Park Today
I've been wanting to share this story for some time and this blog has given me the perfect place to do it.Last year, I was invited to a birthday party for a friend's kid. When I received the invitation, I was so surprised to see that the address was Siang Lim Park! The party was at a condo called The Waterina.Before the party, we looked it up in the map to make sure we could find our way. Here is what we found.Driving down Geylang Road to the party, I remember thinking how familiar everything looked, how as a child our family had driven down this road so many times to go to YeYe and Mama's house.And then we turned into Lorong 40, and the feelings of familiarity disappeared. There were no more old houses, zinc roofs, metal fencing. Just shiny tall buildings.The Waterina was a nice place, it was a nice party, but I couldn't help feeling something had been lost....
Posted by pilgrimparent at 11:58 PM 1 comments
Labels: Siang Lim Park
