Chinatown Historical Street

Mosque Street

Mosque Street was traditionally where poor Hakka immigrants came to trade used goods, in particular paper and scrap metal. Recycled materials were put to interesting uses, cardboard boxes were refashioned into makeshift rickshaws. These did not long lost, of course, at the first heavy downpour made them unusable.

In the 1930s, the government acquired same of the land on Mosque Street for the construction of  Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT) flats. The SIT was in charge of implementing the government’s pioneer public housing project. Hence, the flats on Mosque Street, as well as those in other areas of the island, formed Singapore’s first public housing. The blocks of flats on Mosque Street were four storeys high, with six flats on each floor sharing one kitchen and 2 bathrooms. Many of the residents were Chinese and Malay civil servants, who worked either at the nearby Revenue Department or at Clifford Pier.

Japanese Street

Brothels were common all over Chinatown. However, Japanese brothels were concentrated only in a few areas, such as Trengganu Street. Thus, Trengganu Street was also known as Yap Pun Kai, or Japanese Street. Until the pre-war years, Japanese prostitutes plied their trade along this street in an oddly noble effort to help finance their country’s military campaigns. Besides the brothels, a number of coolie houses also operated on Trengganu Street. In these houses, hundreds of indentured labourers, mostly peasants from southern China, awaited their fate, which lay on the hands of agents and employers.

Other impoverished workers also eked out a living here. Everyday Chinatown’s food hawkers would descend onto Trengganu Street, a routine that endured until the hawkers were moved into Chinatown Complex. During the Lunar New Year season each year, Trengganu Street is filled with the hustle and bustle of street sellers, jamming the pavements, touting their wares late into the night.